Creatures of Sensation
by Born-Of-Elven-Blood
Summary: Nekozawa is a moth, and she is the flame he's drawn to. Haruhi is a very dense threetoed sloth until he wakes up something restless inside her. What will become of these mismatched creatures? [HaruhixNekozawa] Just read it, you know you want to.
1. Killing Lonliness

**Disclaimer:** Ouran High School Host Club, its plot and characters, belong to Hatori Bisco, and not me.

**Note**: Nothing but pure, unadulterated fluffiness, with some humor added as a digestive. Don't even bother reading this. No, really, stop now, you'll spoil your dinner.

_Muwahahahaha! They don't suspect a thing! Reverse psychology gets'em every time! _

**CREATURES OF SENSATION**

**Chapter 1/3**

_**Killing Loneliness**_

"_With the venomous kiss you gave me  
__I'm killing loneliness  
__With the warmth of your arms you saved me  
__I'm killing loneliness that turned my heart into a tomb"  
__--H.I.M._

Nekozawa Umehito was a moth. He was a small, relatively harmless creature that flitted about in darkness. He was also inexplicably drawn to light, even though to touch it was certain doom.

This large, awkward, black clad moth currently sat in a shadowy corner of the 3A classroom. The room was buzzing with activity, students laughing and talking and gathering their things to leave for the day. In the opposite corner of the room, a cluster of students, both male and female, crowded around two of their fellow classmates, one deceptively small, the other surprisingly tall.

Umehito watched, chin propped on one silk-draped hand, while Bereznoff glanced about warily from the other, warding off anyone who might wish to disturb the dark boy's thoughts. Not that anyone would—no on ever did. He was a pariah, completely untouchable. Since he had always been that way, he didn't know if it bothered him. It was just the way things were.

He wasn't thinking about that right now. Right now he was watching the girls who fluttered around the two eldest members of the Host Club. Girls, he had come to realize over the years, glowed with their own inner light. They shone brilliantly, especially when they smiled, and Nekozawa, a moth at heart, constantly felt something inside him drawn to that brightness.

It was one reason that he visited the Third Music Room on days when the Black Magic Club didn't meet. Under the pretense of advertising or selling occult paraphernalia, he allowed himself to sidle up against that glowing world and peek inside, stealing forbidden glimpses of the bright creatures that existed at their most brilliant there. It also didn't hurt that Suoh-kun shrieked and cowered whenever Bereznoff's shadow loomed in his path. Mean-spirited? Perhaps, but there was a dark satisfaction to be found in being feared by the King of that illicit world of light.

One girl's face lit up as Haninozuka Mitsukuni said something endearing. Umehito flinched and looked away. Too bright; so bright that it hurt to gaze upon. If this was why he constantly visited the Third Music Room, it was the same reason he always left quickly. He could never approach too closely, because even though he was a moth, he was also a human being with a strong sense of self preservation.

Rising, he collected his school bag and, assuming a suitably ominous stance, lurked towards the exit. The other students eddied around him like flower petals floating on dark water tend to glide apart at the approach of a boat and come back together in its wake, the surface tension never allowing the entities to touch.

* * *

"Haaaa-ru-hiiii!" came a familiar complaint in the form of a name. The addressee raised her eyes from the textbook in her lap to meet the dual golden gazes of the Hitachiin brothers. She knew that tone of voice all too well. It was a constant precursor of certain doom. 

Upon her acknowledgement, they grinned and pounced, one settling on the couch to each side of her and each slipping one arm around her shoulders. Somehow the book had vanished from her grasp and she was caged between a pair of leering predators.

"We're bored," Kaoru informed her of the obvious as he nestled his head in the crook of her neck.

"Play with us!" Hikaru demanded, nuzzling her cheek affectionately.

"No," Haruhi replied without missing a beat, hanging her head a bit and feeling for all the world like a favorite pet, "I have to study. In fact, you two should be studying as well. You didn't do so well on that last test."

And as she spoke those words, inspiration struck. A dark giggle worked its way out of her chest as slowly, ever so slowly she raised her head to meet their suddenly wary gazes. A small, slightly sadistic smile spread across her face as she imagined the possibilities.

"Now there's an idea. Hikaru, Kaoru, lets study together! We can make flash cards and quiz each other and take turns reading and highlighting the important passages and—"

There was loud whooshing sound and Haruhi was suddenly very alone on the couch. She chuckled at her own ingenuity as she reclaimed her textbook. Those two were definitely rubbing off on her, she realized as she searched for the page she'd been reading, but maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to be just a little bit devious.

Ten minutes later, she began to rethink that analysis when she was startled from her reading by the twins' antics once more; though this time they had a new victim.

She had been so engrossed in her history assignment that she hadn't noticed the entrance of the club's resident stalker, Nekozawa Umehito, a senior in Hunny and Mori's class. He had some kind of love/hate relationship with Tamaki, which, after the incident with his little sister Kirimi, she and understood it a bit better, though he no longer seemed interested in changing his image.

The last time Haruhi had seen Kirimi, hand in hand with Nekozawa, she and her brother had been wearing identical black cloaks and the child had been carrying a huge stuffed cat doll that was bigger than she was. It seemed Nekozawa's prayers for Kirimi to accept darkness had been answered, so why the boy continued to frequent the Third Music Room was beyond Haruhi's knowledge.

It occurred to her that he might be lonely. After all, even though he had been accepted by his little sister, he didn't really seem to have any friends his own age. Maybe he wanted to make friends with the Host Club members, but didn't know how to go about it?

If that was the case, he was probably regretting it right about now, because the twins had cornered him and were circling him like lazy sharks. They had a vicious gleam in their eyes, one that Haruhi recognized all too well. The twins weren't really bullies in the truest sense, but they had yet to fully grow up and were still very self-centered. Therefore, when something snagged their interest, they didn't always fully consider the consequences of their actions, something else that Haruhi knew all too well from personal experience.

Haruhi reached into her bag in search of something to mark her place so that she could find it again once she'd broken up the twins' "game". Her hand closed around her school ID, but she didn't have a chance to tuck it between the pages before the devious doppelgangers sprang on their prey. Kaoru produced a flashlight (from where Haruhi couldn't tell) and flicked it on and off menacingly at Nekozawa, who squealed in a rather unmanly way and backpedaled right into a waiting Hikaru.

As the two collided, Hikaru's hand shot out and plucked Nekozawa's prized hand puppet right off his fingers, causing Nekozawa to cry out in surprised distress. By the time he managed wheel around and make a grab at the supposedly cursed cat doll, Hikaru had already tossed it to Kaoru, who began examining it and demanding to know what made it so special. In lieu of a response, Nekozawa tried once again to snatch back the doll, but his heavy black cloak kept getting in the way, constraining his movements and making him clumsy, so that he didn't make it before Kaoru tossed the doll back to Hikaru. Things quickly descended into a sleazy game of keep-away.

Haruhi was horrified for two reasons. One was that Nekozawa seemed to be very upset, shaking slightly from anger or alarm or embarrassment, probably all three. The other was that it was all her fault. If she hadn't been so quick to chase those to two away, they wouldn't have taken out their frustration on someone else.

Their usual victims were used to their tricks, and knew how to counter them: Tamaki was thick-skinned and resilient as rubber, he could take it. Hunny and Mori were both highly trained martial artists and Kyoya had a legion of personal bodyguards just a phone call away. But Nekozawa's only weapon was the threat of his dark arts, which didn't impress the twins in the slightest, and thus he was as good as defenseless against their merciless teasing.

Tamaki had bolted for the opposite end of the room when Nekozawa had entered and was shouting at the twins (and being thoroughly ignored) to stop doing things that would get them cursed. Kyoya frowned at the commotion over the top of his Pineapple laptop before turning back to his typing. Hunny stopped shoveling cake into his mouth long enough to observe the scene, and Mori tensed, ready to jump in if the situation got out of hand.

However, in Haruhi's mind, which was not a little fraught with self-imposed guilt, it was already too much. The poor guy was an oddity, sure, but he didn't deserve to be treated like a plaything. With a disgusted glance over her shoulder at the inaction of her fellow club members, she dashed over to the two instigators, who were too busy running Nekozawa in circles to notice her approach, tucking her school ID into her jacket pocket as she went.

Help arrived too late. Nekozawa, once more in the process of dashing after his pilfered puppet, got twisted in his cloak, stepping on the hem in his haste. As such, when his body turned, his feet couldn't keep up and he landed on his face with a thud.

At last the rest of the onlookers jumped into action, only to be brought up short as Haruhi whacked each twin on the back of the head, plucked the cat doll from the grasp of a shame-faced Hikaru and whirled around, pinning them all with a frozen glare.

"Don't bother!" she snapped.

They all appeared quite taken aback at her tone; Tamaki was particularly stricken, and promptly dissolved into a puddle of misery. Somewhere in the back of her mind Haruhi realized she might be taking her anger at herself out on the rest of them just a teeny bit, but it wasn't like they didn't deserve it for their lax attitudes.

"And you two!" she rounded on the twins who jumped back in alarm, "Grow up! People aren't toys!"

To her surprise, they hung their heads and nodded guiltily, mumbling half-heard apologies. Haruhi surmised that they hadn't meant for it to escalate so far.

Satisfied that the lot of them had been properly scolded, she turned to Nekozawa, who had pulled himself to his knees, and sat on his heels, face pointed steadfastly at the floor. His hands were fisted in his robes and they were still shaking slightly.

"Senpai, are you okay?"

* * *

Umehito was used to teasing. All his life he had stuck out like a sore thumb, and being different meant being ridiculed. That didn't mean he liked it. What was worse, it was Fujioka-kun, of all people, who came to his aid. 

Fujioka Haruhi was an oddity; he man that shined like a woman. It was this quality that made him fit to be a part of the Host Club; but unlike the others, who mostly put on airs and fit themselves into a 'type', all Fujioka had to do was be himself and people flocked to him in droves.

Whenever Fujioka smiled, Umehito felt the same attraction he felt in the presence of the girls in his class. Not only that, it was a sort of subdued, subtle brilliance, just as appealing as the loveliest girl without being too overpowering to look at. In essence, Fujioka Haruhi was perfect for both Nekozawa Umehito the moth and Nekozawa Umehito the man.

And this made him more than a little nervous, because Fujioka Haruhi was also, in fact, a man, and therefore should NOT be affecting him this way. As a matter of self-preservation, he made a point of not thinking about it too hard—the implications were too overwhelming.

But now Fujioka was kneeling next to him, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder, and tilting his head down, trying to get a look at Umehito's face through the shadows of his hood.

"Senpai, are you okay?"

Umehito felt his cheeks burning with embarrassment. Why, why, _why_ had he come here again?!

His club didn't meet today, nor were there any pressing rites to be preformed on the either the Wiccan or lunar calendar for at least a week; he'd checked twice, hoping to find something with which to occupy himself. No such luck. With nothing better to do, he'd lurked around the halls for a bit before he found himself outside the Third Music Room and decided to enter. The reaction to him was always so deliciously instantaneous, as Suoh-kun went into fits of terror, and usually at least one or two others would have something to say to him—it was one of the few times he was acknowledged rather than being pointedly ignored by his peers.

However, today he'd snagged the attention of the two apparently foul tempered identical freshmen.

"Ah, it's so sad, Haruhi won't play with us today!" one had pouted with a scowl (Umehito couldn't tell them apart to save his life).

At the mention of Fujioka's name, Umehito couldn't help but glance across the room at the brunette boy, who had been studiously ignoring the rest of the world in favor of the text book lying across his lap. He'd felt his face flush and been as thankful as ever for his all-concealing garments. But due to his lack of concentration, he'd allowed himself to be snared. The twins had separated and circled him like predators moving in for the kill.

"Our toy is no fun today, Hikaru," the other had agreed.

"Ah, you know, Kaoru," the first, Hikaru apparently, had then rejoined, "maybe Neko-senpai will play with us instead!"

"Eh?" Nekozawa had intelligently interjected, not at all liking where things were headed.

"You know, that sounds like it might be fun, Hikaru!" Kaoru had grinned viciously and then Umehito had been blinded as a flashlight beam flickered in his face.

It was at that moment that Fujioka had decided to glance up from his book and take note of the unfolding disaster, and all Umehito could think of was getting Bereznoff back and getting the hell out of there before things could possibly get any more humiliating.

Each time Bereznoff had sailed through the air out of his reach he'd felt himself panic just a little more. There was no reason for it, he'd kept telling himself, he should just stop running around like a fool and wait for the two trouble makers to lose interest, upon which he could leave in peace and hex them at his leisure—at least it would have given him something to do with himself for the rest of the afternoon.

But he had been so agitated that Fujioka was watching and he wanted to get _away_.

And that was how he'd ended up face down on the cold tile, which felt pretty good against his burning face, he had to admit, with Fujioka standing above him shouting reprimands at his friends on Umehito's behalf.

And while he grudgingly admitted to himself that he was pleased Fujioka would stand up for, it rubbed him wrong that he was displaying such weakness in front of this younger boy that had somehow snagged his attention.

He was mortified. He was never, ever, _ever_ going to be able to come back to the Host Club after this. Maybe if he was stealthy about it he could crawl under one of the sofas and hide until everyone left…

"Senpai?" Fujioka repeated, and Umehito jerked his head up, startled out of his morose reverie to find Fujioka's face mere inches from his own, eyes soft with concern. "Here," he said, extending Bereznoff to him, which he took gratefully.

"I—I'm fine, Fujioka-kun," he stuttered, a bit more defensively than he meant to. Fujioka, however, seemed to take it in stride and, glancing over at his club mates, who remained in shock from their reprimand, he leaned in conspiratorially and offered him one of his radiant smiles. Umehito toyed with the idea of fainting.

"Don't worry about them," Fujioka assured him, "they don't really mean any harm, they're just big babies sometimes."

"Haruhiiiii!" the twins whined over his shoulder, but a scowl from Fujioka sent them off to mope with Suoh in the corner, albeit far less dramatically. Meanwhile, Fujioka rose and offered him a hand.

"Th-thank you," he murmured, slightly dazed as he took hold and moved to stand, "I—ah!"

A pall of resignation descended upon him as he face-planted for the second time in under a minute, almost pulling the other boy down with him as pain lanced up his left leg. Bereznoff must be punishing him for not taking better care of him; he must have twisted his ankle when he fell.

"Ah, you're not okay!" Fujioka exclaimed in dismay, helping him stand more carefully, then, to his shock, looping Umehito's left arm around his shoulder and pulling him in the direction of the door. "Don't put any weight on it, just in case. The infirmary should have some ice to put on it. Let's go."

A number of voices rose at the same time.

"Haruhi! Daddy told you not to play with dark wizards! I cannot allow my precious dau—oof!" (Tamaki slipped on a banana peel and tumbled over one of the sofas—all the money spent on professional animal trappers and it seemed there were still chimpanzees loose in the school.)

"Haruhi is no fun today. We're always getting yelled at, Kaoru. Do you think it could be something _we're_ doing?"

"Impossible, we're so lovable and meek! Why can't you ever get worked up in the other direction, Haruhi?"

"Haruhi, maybe I should…"

"Takashi, can I have another piece of cake?"

"You realize the longer you're gone, the more I'm going to have to add on to your debt for making our customers wait?"

"D-don't worry, Fujioka-kun, I can make it myself."

This last protest came from Umehito, but was pointedly ignored along with the rest of them by the small, irritated commoner as he yanked the door open and slammed it shut behind them.

As they made their way down the long hallway, Umehito did his best to concentrate on walking without leaning too heavily on Fujioka, though it was impossible to do so completely—his ankle really hurt badly, and he doubted now that he could have made it on his own.

All the while his mind was busy frantically trying to deny the fact that Fujioka's small, warm hand was wrapped around his wrist, as well as the inalienable truth that their bodies were pressed close side by side.

This SHOULD NOT be affecting him so much, his mind insisted, at which point his body told his mind to shut up and mind its own business.

Thoroughly told off, his mind then began working out ways to ease the tension with conversation. This was easier said than done.

"Ano…" Was the best he could do on short notice.

Fujioka, who seemed to have been lost in thought, glanced up at him.

"Hmm? Did you say something, senpai?"

This close, his eyes seemed even larger and deeper, and as he looked down into them, Umehito's mouth suddenly felt like it was full of cotton.

"Ah…" he replied eloquently, and then elaborated with an intelligent-sounding "Um…" before his brain and body decided to have mercy on him and work together.

"S…sorry about this." Not poetry, but he was still inordinately proud of himself for managing to string together more than two syllables in light of his current situation.

Then Fujioka smiled reassuringly again and fainting seemed like a distinct possibility once more. He practically sparkled when he smiled, shimmered even. It was subtle and…inviting…

Scrambling away from those thoughts with all possible haste, he just managed to catch Fujioka's response.

"It's no trouble, senpai. Actually, I feel like I should apologize to you. Hikaru and Kaoru usually play their tricks on me, but I figured out a way to send them packing today, and I guess they took it out on you."

"Those two? _How?_" he inquired earnestly, taking a real interest. Normally, his cultivated aura of nefarious darkness was enough to scare people away, and when that wasn't, his curses usually did the trick. Those two red-headed devils had proved surprisingly resistant to all his efforts, yet something Fujioka did had been effective. Interesting.

Fujioka chuckled, and Umehito was surprised to hear a note of malevolence in his voice as the freshman recalled the incident.

"Nothing special. I threatened to make them study," he remarked. Then, before Umehito had a chance to delve further into Fujioka's twin-repelling techniques, "I'm sorry about the rest of them too. I couldn't believe none of them were going to do anything…"

Umehito shrugged at the change of subject, grateful that they were talking about something—anything to get his mind off the current situation.

"People are usually afraid to come near me," he confided airily, "Although, you don't seem to be one of them." Reflexively, he grinned eerily at the younger boy. "Aren't you frightened of this cursed doll Bereznoff?" To underscore the point, he raised Bereznoff on his free hand, who leered at Fujioka menacingly.

Fujioka turned his level gaze on him.

"No," he answered simply, "I don't really believe in that sort of thing. I believe a person makes his own luck." His gaze turned thoughtful and distant, as though he were seeing something larger and farther away than most could, and Umehito wondered what it might be. "A curse is just someone else's ill will towards you. So if you don't rely too heavily on what others think, it can't affect you."

Umehito cocked his head curiously. "I never thought of it that way," he admitted, impressed by this insight, partly because there was truth to it, and partly because it surprised him that a person so obviously ill-acquainted with the occult had thought puzzled that out.

"Besides," Fujioka added, eyes refocusing on Umehito's shadowed face once more, "you forget that I've seen you without your robes on. You're not very scary under there, senpai."

Unable to decide whether he should be flattered or offended (Not very scary? Was he losing his touch?), Umehito simply smirked and evaded.

"Suoh-kun is still frightened of me. Though it must seem like I haven't changed at all, even when he worked so hard to help me change myself. You all did. I guess that's something else for me to apologize for."

Fujioka shook his head, turning his eyes back to the hallway in front of them. "You are who you are, senpai. Its up to you to be who you want to be, so don't let anyone ever make you feel ashamed of your choices."

Umehito could only stare down at the small, radiant creature than was forgiving him for being a dark, untouchable monstrosity without even knowing it.

_Not untouchable_ his brain reminded him _Fujioka is touching you right now._ He felt his treacherous cheeks flair with heat again as something in his chest clenched violently and sent shivers along his spine. Thankfully, the obstacle of the stairway presented itself just in time to take his mind off the curiously powerful sensation.

It was a strenuous task, making their way down the staircase in tandem; Fujioka's lack of height and Umehito's lack of grace (not helped by the weight and bulk of his robes and having only one useful leg) made it a clumsy, dangerous affair. Finally they agreed to take a break and settled next to each other midway down the stairs.

The halls had been deserted, all the students tied up in club activities or gone for the day, and the building seemed exceptionally quiet. They lapsed into a comfortable silence. At least, Fujioka seemed comfortable, his eyes taking on that distant quality once again as he lost himself in thought.

Meanwhile, Umehito fidgeted. He moved his ankle experimentally. Nope, still painful. He plucked at a string that had come loose on the sleeve of his robe. It began to unravel and had to be abandoned. Bereznoff twiddled his thumbs, a real feat, considering he didn't have thumbs.

Truth be told, he wanted to talk to Fujioka some more. They had been conversing almost normally, a new and novel experience for a loner like him. On top of that, the younger boy had gone out of his way to help him on numerous occasions and had been kind and patient towards his little sister. He had even stood up for him against his own friends, and was missing out on his club activities to help him.

Umehito found himself entertaining some absurdly unrealistic hopes.

He was about to throw caution to the wind and strike up some more conversation (about what he couldn't be sure, he hadn't managed to plan that far ahead) when he noticed a white square of plastic on the step below them. Curious (and certainly not looking for excuses to put off struggling for a topic), he bent and picked it up.

It was Fujioka's ID card. He must have dropped it when they sat down.

His eyes grazed the contents briefly as he turned to hand it back to its owner.

Name: Fujioka Haruhi; Age: 16; Gender: Female; Height: 5'0"; Weight: 108; Home Address…

There was a distinct screeching sound as reality ground to a halt.

Umehito did a fierce double-take as he re-read the card. He then re-read it again, just to be absolutely sure that he wasn't seeing things. Bereznoff peeked in to see what was so interesting, then glanced sideways at the oblivious person sitting not two feet away, who seemed to be completely unaware that the world had been picked up and dumped on its head.

"Ano…Fujioka…san…" he muttered, slightly dazed, "Are you…maybe…possibly…a girl?"

"Hmm?" Fujioka's head turned and his (her?!) eyes focused on him, then on the little square of plastic he was holding in his hands. He (she?!) smiled knowingly, as though Umehito were a child that had just deduced some obvious truth.

"Yeah," was his (her?!) simple response as he (SHE?!) plucked the ID card from his hand and tucked it into his (**HER**?!?) jacket pocket and resumed staring into space.

A _**girl**_?!

The first thing that occurred to Umehito, after his mind stopped juggling pronouns, was to be incredibly, unequivocally relieved. Because if Fujioka was a girl, that made these increasingly scrappy and hard-to-fend-off feelings a lot less confusing. But while lots of uncomfortable questions were answered, plenty of new ones sprang up to take their place.

There was another long silence between them during which Fujioka continued to space out and Umehito fidgeted some more. If Fujioka had been purposely hiding the fact that she was a girl, she sure didn't seem all that bothered to have been found out. So why…? Curiosity winning out over any anxieties he was harboring, he forged ahead.

"Ano…Fujioka…"

Those large doe eyes focused on him once more. "Eh? Sorry, senpai, I wasn't paying attention. Are you ready to keep going?"

"Huh?"

He had completely forgotten about the injury that was the reason he was sitting alone on an empty staircase with a (very pretty, he decided he could admit now that it didn't point to any possible subconscious homosexual tendencies) girl who was once again shining at him in that alluring way that girls do without even realizing it.

"Oh," he commented, as his ankle twinged and returned his memory to him, "Er…I suppose…but that's not…I mean…you're a _girl_?"

Her steady gaze made him nervous. She was so calm and sure that it made all his anxiety and uncertainty seem far more acute. Yet at the same time, it was reassuring. It said 'yes, you're crashing and burning, but I'm not holding it against you'.

"It's a long story," she informed him, "But the short version is that I have an 8 million yen debt to pay back to the Host Club and working as a host is quicker and a lot more pleasant than doing odd jobs for the rest of my high school life."

Umehito didn't know what to say to this, so he didn't say anything. Fortunately Fujioka continued without prompting.

"Not that I don't enjoy the host club. Life would be rather dull without it at times. I just wish I wasn't forced to do it under threat of punishment. It sort of undermines the enjoyment when you're constantly being reminded of overwhelming responsibility of meeting impossible expectations." She smiled forlornly. "I don't mind being taken for a guy, but I'd still like to have a choice, you know?"

Umehito stared, azure eyes wide through the dark locks of his wig, mouth slightly parted in amazement.

"Yes, I do."

He did know. He knew all too well. Nekozawa Umehito was a moth, a creature of the night. He enjoyed the darkness, reveled in the occult, savored the ability to draw on people's terror. But because of his phobia of light, because couldn't choose to go out in the sun even if he wanted to, it seemed more like a constant burden. Even though he preferred the darkness, he too would have liked the opportunity to choose it, rather than having it thrust upon him out of necessity.

"I suppose you would. We're very much alike, you and I," she rejoined thoughtfully.

She was smiling that smile at him again, and once more he felt that pull, like a moth driven to immolate itself on an open flame. It was radiant, soft, like the glow of a candle in the darkness, a warm, gentle blaze shining right past his layers of shadow and igniting something inside him. For the first time in his life, though still unutterably terrified, Nekozawa Umehito did not want to run from that light. Not even a little.

In fact, if he were to be completely honest with himself, he wanted to move closer. And he was moving closer, he realized a little belatedly. He felt like one flower petal on dark water gliding towards another. Momentum carried him forward. He couldn't stop. Maybe he really didn't want to.

"Senpai?" she inquired as the shadow of his hood fell across her face; curiously, her eyes still seemed to shine in the darkness. They were the last thing he saw before his own drifted closed, full of questions, then surprise as his lips brushed timidly against hers, gentle as a feather.

His other senses seemed to shut down in deference to sensation, and all that was real was the gentle graze of her soft lips. As expected, Umehito felt like he was on fire, like his body was engulfed in an inferno, or like the sun was shining full in his face. But for once there was no pain, only a tightening in his chest that made his limbs feel weak and tingly. It was strange and frightening. It felt very…_nice._

Fujioka's shoulders had gone quite rigid, and her eyes had somehow managed to get even wider, so that when he pulled back, she seemed to be gaping at him, or perhaps through him or past him, shocked. He felt a little bad; not for kissing her, because he had wanted to, for a long time he realized, but because he had just sort of blindsided her. What if she was angry, or disgusted? What was she feeling? What could she possibly be thinking?

Her eyes focused on him at last, her lips parting as though she were trying to say something but had forgotten how. Blushing furiously under her intense scrutiny, he opened his mouth, intending to fumble through an apology in an attempt to salvage something of their previous amity.

"I…er… I'm sor—mph!"

He never got a chance to finish as a small, soft body launched itself against his, so that he was pinned against the wall of the stairwell, and suddenly a hot mouth was pressed to his.

It was his turn to be shocked and his hands flew to her shoulders, intending to push her back and gain some perspective on the situation, but somewhere between his head and his hands, the message got lost in translation, because he found his arms folding around her as he did his level best to return the kiss.

His last coherent thought was that at least she probably didn't hate him…

* * *

Impossible as it seemed, there was an interested party with an even sketchier grasp on the situation than him. 

If Nekozawa Umehito was a moth, Fujioka Haruhi had probably always been a cousin of the three-toed sloth: she was slow moving, seemingly unmotivated, did absolutely nothing unnecessary if she could help it and one of the few things in life that could make her move was food. She was a plain, simple girl, with straightforward goals and opinions.

Anyone who knew her would never have guessed there was anything more to her.

In fact, right up until she saw that look in his wide, mesmerized eyes as he loomed over her, so shockingly blue through the layers of black he'd wrapped around himself, and felt something inside her stir and twist in response, Haruhi had never much considered such a possibility herself.

But the moment she felt the feather-light touch of his lips, so gentle it was almost a tease, something wild and restless started awake inside her and began crawling around under her skin. It was the only rational description her startled mind could find to explain the tingling sensation that was creeping along her spine to settle in her abdomen, making her chest tight and her limbs itch to do _something_.

Poor Haruhi's utilitarian, logic-based mind was at a complete loss, leaving her wide open for this new, irrational creature that was wearing her skin to take advantage of her inattention. In the bare seconds before conscious thought was overtaken completely, she regarded it critically. It was a creature of sensation, she decided; it reveled in what the five senses could give it, minus all that pesky analysis.

Thought was unnecessary; awareness was enough.

The concept was alien. But then again, as the Zuka Club had forced her to admit, there were many interesting ways to live. In an effort to convince herself that she had a choice in the matter, she decided to give it a try.

This verdict was handed down about three seconds _after_ she all but tackled him, though just in time for her to be pleased as he wrapped surprisingly strong arms around her and leaned into her.

The kiss was awkward and clumsy; it was clear neither of them had any idea what they were doing, or it would have been if either of them felt compelled to care. They were, however, rather too preoccupied to mind as her hands slid up his chest to wrap around his neck.

When she felt tentative brush of rough wetness against her suddenly sensitive lips, fireworks exploded behind her eyes. She decided there was definitely something to this whole kissing thing as she cautiously darted her own tongue out in response. As it brushed foreign flesh for the first time, the arms around her tightened like a vise and he surged against her, opening his mouth and deepening the kiss eagerly. What he lacked in skill and experience he more than made up for with enthusiasm. Haruhi, in a similar situation, found she had no trouble reciprocating.

The creature of sensation that was currently Fujioka Haruhi was in its element. The solid warmth of his body pressed against her. The smell of some kind of spicy, exotic incense that clung to his clothing. The taste of something strange and slightly sweet on both their tongues. The sound of approaching footsteps…

_Footsteps?_ Uh-oh…

They leapt apart, Haruhi backpedaling until the opposite wall of the stairwell stopped her, and stared at each other with identical expressions of genuine surprise.

Had that just happened?

Wet, slightly swollen lips, heaving, oxygen-deprived lungs and adrenaline-drenched pounding hearts said 'yes, definitely', even if rationality said 'no, no, don't be silly, because that's Fujioka Haruhi over there, and that's Nekozawa Umehito over there,' which seemed like a perfectly reasonable explanation until their bodies once again reminded them that yes, that definitely just happened, rationality be damned.

The unreality of the situation seemed to hit him at the same moment it hit her, because suddenly they were smiling at each other, and then there were some quiet giggles and all of a sudden they were laughing together.

It must have made an interesting sight for the two unsuspecting second year boys who rounded the corner then, on their way out of the school for the day. They stopped to stare for a second, their discussion dying on their lips as they took in the spectacle before them.

"Um…Fujioka-kun, what's up?" one finally found his voice.

Checking her hilarity through sheer force of will, Haruhi, wiped a tear from her eye as she turned to the newcomers.

"Hello," she greeted them; they were in Tamaki and Kyoya's class, she remembered, though she couldn't quite remember their names. "Sorry if we're in the way. Nekozawa-senpai twisted his ankle, and I was helping him to the infirmary. We were just…" she paused, and met Nekozawa's cautious gaze before she continued, "…taking a short rest."

From the corner of her eye, she saw him deflate slightly, though from relief or disappointment she honestly couldn't tell; his hood had fallen lower and his face was invisible in the shadows. She wondered if she had said something wrong, or right, or if perhaps that creature of sensation that had woken up inside her (which her rational mind was currently beating into submission with the lead pipe of willpower) had set her up to start over analyzing things (heaven forbid) like every other hormone driven female in this crazy school.

"Oh, that explains a lot," the other laughed quietly, then stepped forward, "Suoh is upstairs running up and down the halls looking for you, Fujioka. I think he was shouting something about the seventh seal of the apocalypse…in fact, you should probably go let him know you're alright. We'll um…" he glanced at his companion, who suddenly seemed torn between friendship with the popular younger boy and apprehension of the creepy older boy, then threw caution to the wind, "we'll take Nekozawa-senpai to the infirmary."

Haruhi sweat-dropped and a pall descended on her as she thought of the borderline-psychotic glomping that awaited her. She sighed, but her irritation couldn't quite overpower the excited contentment that was still thrumming through her nervous system.

"I guess letting him meltdown would only mean more work for me in the end," Haruhi commented uncharitably. The two newcomers laughed uneasily, unable to decide whether or not she was joking or not. She didn't bother to elaborate as she levered herself to her feet.

At this, Nekozawa's head rose and Haruhi was looking into his deep blue eyes again. There was a thin make-shift barrier erected there, built with caution and insecurity, but peering at her from behind it was something else entirely. It was a question and a hope; an honest feeling and an earnest desire. He wanted to know. Wanted to know what? He didn't seem quite sure himself.

Haruhi hardly knew how to answer him. The creature of sensation paused in the process of being strangled with a garrote by Haruhi's iron-clad self-control to interject a suggestion, and since her rational mind couldn't come up with anything more accurate, she smiled a gently at him. His eyes widened fractionally as hope crowded out apprehension.

"Feel better, senpai," she entreated, her eyes lingering on his a bit longer than they might have before she turned and headed back up the stairs, nodding her thanks to the other two boys in passing as they tried to work out how to get Nekozawa to the infirmary without getting too close to him.

As she made her way towards the uproar coming from the general direction of the Third Music Room, a warm glow settled in Haruhi's chest. Her face felt hot, and she realized she was blushing. Well, no wonder, since her heart had not stopped racing yet. She pressed cool hands to her face and took a few deep breaths, doing her best to concentrate on mundane, neutral thoughts. Think homework, think chores, think sales at the supermarket. Her Zen began to resurface.

She still wasn't completely sure she knew what had just transpired, and whatever it had been made no sense, but maybe that was okay. The creature of sensation had been shocked back into submission by the tazer of Haruhi's single-minded resolve, but it was still there, lurking just the other side of self-control and she had to wonder if she'd ever be the same again. It occurred to her as she was flattened by a curiously Tamaki-shaped steamroller that a similar creature probably ruled the Host Club King twenty-four hours a day. Did this mean that she had she found a way to relate to him?

Fortunately, she was saved from these disturbingly empathetic thoughts by the shouting, fidgeting, wailing, snuggling, scribbling, blinking, tugging and cake-offering that met her as she opened the door to the Third Music Room, which seemed to be some form of group apology and/or attempt to exorcise her of any lingering evil spirits.

As she looked around the room at the six handsome, popular men currently engrossed in varying forms of falling-all-over-themselves-trying-to-keep-her-from-being-angry-ness, she pressed her palm to her forehead, and for the second time today burst into earnest, helpless laughter.

The creature of sensation snuggled superciliously into a comfortable nook in her subconscious, where the torture devices of her conscious mind couldn't reach, and made itself quite at home.

* * *

End Chapter 1**

* * *

Note: Ah, one down, two to go! Most of this story so far, like all my stories, was written late at night, fueled by sugar and caffeine and my twisted imagination, so I apologize for any errors. There is never enough Nekozawa love floating around the fanverse, so I had to have Haruhi give him some. Hopefully the characters weren't too OOC, I tried to explain away their weirdness, but I'm never quite sure if I did an adequate job or not.**

That's where you come in! Reviews make me write faster! So if you want to know what will happen to our awkward hero and heroine, tell me what you think. Comments and constructive criticism are encouraged! Flames will be used to light firecrackers!


	2. The Funeral of Hearts

**Disclaimer:** Ouran High School Host Club, its plot and characters, belong to Hatori Bisco, and not me. Also, the song lyrics belong to HIM and not me.

**Note:** So I took my sweet time getting this finished, right? Sincerest apologies! Hopefully it was worth the wait! Without further ado, chapter 2, in which we further complicate the lives of our two favorite animals! Please enjoy!

**CREATURES OF SENSATION**

**Chapter 2/3**

**_The Funeral of Hearts_**

"_Love's the funeral of hearts and an ode for cruelty  
__When angels cry blood on flowers of evil in bloom  
__The funeral of hearts and a plea for mercy  
__When love is a gun separating me from you."  
__--H.I.M._

Umehito flipped over and sighed. Again.

His ankle, tightly bandaged and propped on a pillow under a mountain of ice packs, twinged. Again.

He thought of Fujioka's extremely eager and pliant body squirming in his embrace, and of the way they had laughed so easily together, of how she had smiled that powerful, gentle smile. He blushed helplessly. Again.

He flipped over and sighed. Again.

This had been going on for the better part of three hours. It was too early to go to bed, and his mind was too full to sleep anyway, but the injury to his leg, which turned out to be nothing more than a pulled muscle that would probably heal in a day or two, had confined him to his room for the weekend. That was just fine with him, since he had a lot of tossing and turning and sighing to do.

He flipped over and sighed. Again. He was getting nowhere fast.

The heavy black drapes that hung over his windows shut out all natural light. The only luminescence came from the flicker of a candelabrum at his bedside. The familiar fluttering radiance danced over the dark walls, casting long, elaborate shadows over shelves littered with various books and artifacts, odds and ends. Comfortable in the confines of his lair, he had shucked his cloak, wig and uniform in favor of his favorite tee-shirt (black, if it even needs to be said) and a pair of black slacks. Bereznoff lounged comfortably on the small dark altar he'd erected in one corner of the room. Sprawled on his large Victorian four-poster bed, arms folded behind his head, he stared up at the gloomy ceiling.

Then he flipped over and sighed. Again.

His phone rested tantalizingly on the nightstand. Finding her phone number wouldn't be overly difficult. He could call her.

Yeah right. What could he say?

Hello? _Always a good start._

How was your day? _Cliché._

Thanks for earlier? _Which part? Which do you think?_

Want to do it again sometime? _Ah, and now we come to it._

Indeed.

He didn't flip over, but he still sighed and blushed a little for good measure as he thought about what 'doing it again sometime' might involve, then kicked himself for even thinking it.

What was the point? _You care for her._

Fujioka was one of the most popular people in school, attractive, charismatic and surrounded by droves of equally popular and charismatic people. _Yet she still greets you when you pass in the halls._

What could he possibly offer her? _Wealth? Status?_

What could he possibly offer her that any other guy (or girl, for that matter) at Ouran Academy couldn't offer her? _Warmth, affection…your heart?_

He didn't have anything she wanted. _She kissed you back._

"…"

This line of thinking was truly pointless. Whether she returned the sentiment or not, the simple, incontrovertible fact was that he was enchanted by her. Intense introspection, aided by hours of sighing, told him that he had been for quite a while; he had been so busy trying to deny it that he hadn't even noticed it growing inside him until it was too big to ignore any longer.

The trouble was what to do about it. _Tell her._

He wanted her to acknowledge these feelings that she engendered in him, even if she couldn't reciprocate them. _Give her a gift._

What would be appropriate?

_Flowers?_ She always seemed utterly unimpressed with Suoh's floral pyrotechnics.

_Candy?_ She didn't like sweets. She liked seafood, he recalled, but that was too ambiguous.

_Jewelry?_ If she preferred to dress like a boy, what possible use could she have for jewelry? If she were the type to be swayed by materialism, she would have fallen under the charms of the Hitachiin twins ages ago.

No, nothing conventional would do. He needed to think of something as unique as she; nothing overly flashy, but definitely something significant. _What? What, what, what?_

Umehito flipped over and sighed. Again.

"…_We're very much alike, you and I…"_

Inspiration struck. He sat bolt upright as her words echoed in his mind, the breeze from his sudden movement making the candlelight flicker; his golden hair fluttered around his face and glimmered in the dancing light as he beamed into the darkness.

"That's it!" he exclaimed triumphantly.

_Perfect_ that pesky inner voice agreed.

It was something significant between the two of them, something only they would understand. It was substantial without being showy. It was definitely expensive, but really just a drop in the bucket of the generous monthly allowance his parents gave him, which he had been saving for quite a while (they seemed to hope he'd find a new hobby to spend it on, one that didn't involve black robes and hand puppets, but his only expenses continued to be incense and the occasional dark relic—wouldn't they be pleased at this.) and it was definitely something she could use, could appreciate.

He snatched the phone from his nightstand and made a few calls, his heart and mind racing with exhilaration.

He had the power to give her something they both wanted: a choice. And he would.

* * *

It had taken a full weekend of furious studying, laundry, dishwashing, more studying, sweeping, dusting, even more studying, grocery shopping, cooking, and a bit of studying to round things out, but when she walked into school Monday morning, Haruhi felt almost normal. 

For about ten minutes.

She had almost made it to her classroom when a dark shadow flitted into her peripheral vision. All of a sudden her heart was in her throat, her cheeks were glowing like road flares and there was a herd of frantic butterflies scrabbling around in her stomach. Her eyes darted to the end of the hall.

He appeared to have noticed her as well, because he had halted in his tracks. She couldn't see his face under his hood, but his head darted from side to side as though he were searching for something, Bereznoff fidgeting on his hand. He then bolted in the opposite direction, scurrying around the nearest corner in a melodramatic flurry of billowing black fabric.

Haruhi frowned, surprised at the disappointment she felt. What had she expected to happen? She realized she wasn't sure, but if she hadn't been expecting anything, why was she disappointed? She sighed forlornly. This was bad: a weekend's strenuous labor undone with nothing more than a distant glimpse. She was in trouble.

"Well, if he can move that fast, at least his ankle is feeling better," she noted sourly as she slid the door open and entered her class, resolving to throw herself into her schoolwork as an escape from less productive, if more curiously enticing thoughts.

This might have worked too, if she had been able to hide in one classroom all day. But it seemed that every time she ventured out into the hallway, he was somehow nearby, lurking in the shadows, dogging her steps and trying to look like he wasn't. And Haruhi tried to be irritated at him, she really did; she would have been if it were anyone else, she knew, but for some unknown reason, he was exempt.

When she couldn't manage irritation, she shot for annoyance, but had no better luck. She managed to muster shades of aggravation, exasperation and frustration, but they were lukewarm at best and all directed at herself and her own lack of sensibility. All she seemed to be able to do was blush and glance at him from the corner of her eye, which had given her a headache by the end of the day. Worst of all, when she wasn't loitering in the hallway watching him watch her, she was sitting in class not listening to the lecture, gnawing on the end of her pen and wondering if he would be around before next period.

She didn't understand her own actions; they were completely baseless! If she wanted to look at him, why not just turn her head? Why not say hello? Why not walk over and ask him why he was so clearly following her around when he clearly didn't want to talk to her?

She didn't have an answer.

Somewhere inside her, still stealthily evading capture, that annoyingly smug creature of sensation leered at her knowingly, taunting her with the instinctual wisdom it refused to divulge, so that by time classes ended for the day, all she wanted to do was bang her head against a wall until she fell unconscious; at least if she were asleep she wouldn't have to think. Instead she retreated to one of the libraries after school, stuck her nose in a book and waited for him to show up.

But he didn't.

She kept glancing over the top of it, her eyes scanning the sea of blue jackets and yellow skirts for a splash of black, but he was no where in sight. She managed to read the same line of text seven times without registering a word of it before she slammed the book shut in disgust. Why follow her around all day just to disappear right after school ended? And why, why, _why_?! did it bother her so much?

Glancing up at the clock, she realized she was already ten minutes late for the Host Club. She was both exasperated and relieved. _Surely_ if anyone could take her mind off this ridiculous situation, it was them. 'Kill poison with poison,' as the saying goes. In hopes that the same principle applied to insanity, she all but ran to the Third Music Room, pausing outside the door to catch her breath before she turned the handle.

"Sorry I'm late again, I…" she stopped and stared

Someone, probably Tamaki, she guessed, had turned the lights out. The afternoon sunlight slanted through the large windows, creating a murky half-light in the large music room. The Host Club sat around the main table, quiet and still.

Hikaru and Kaoru sat side by side, chins propped on their palms, eyes boring into the table.

Kyoya's Pineapple laptop and notebook were noticeably missing, his Waterman pen tapping absently against the polished tabletop in time with the ticking of the grandfather clock.

Hunny was conspicuously not eating cake as he clutched Usa-chan to his chest, his nose buried in the bunny's head so that only his watery eyes peeked over the top.

Mori looked scarier than usual for some reason.

Tamaki, not to be out done by anyone, had his head flat against the tabletop in a puddle of drying tears.

Each wore an expression more sober than the last. The atmosphere was heavy, the cloud of gloom hanging over their heads so thick it was almost palpable. Haruhi felt her hopes plummet into the pit of her stomach.

Had the whole world lost its cohesiveness?

Was there no hope for normalcy?

And since when had she begun to consider anything about the Host Club normal?

All was lost.

"Now what?" she wondered aloud, almost afraid to ask as she flipped on the lights, disturbed by the theatrics, or rather the distinct lack thereof.

She felt her fears justified as six sets of eyes honed in on her like heat-seeking missiles. Hairs raised on the back of her neck at the hostility she saw there, the accusation. Slightly shocked, began backing slowly towards the door.

"Ano…I'll just…wait outside and—"

She bumped into something warm and spun around to find Tamaki standing behind her, tears cascading down his ashen face in a waterfall. A squeak worked its way out of her chest as she jumped back, noticing the trail of tears on the floor leading to where he'd somehow managed to slither up behind her unnoticed, disturbingly similar to a snail trail. Undeterred by her defensiveness, he stepped forward and lay heavy hands on her shoulders, his hair falling over his face as his head drooped.

"Haruhi…" he spoke gravely, and for a moment, silence reigned.

Then she was being squeezed to death in strong arms and drowning in a deluge of tears. It took her a moment to surmise that she wasn't actually in any mortal danger, and when she had puzzled that out, she began listening to the tirade that was going on somewhere just above her head.

"…just isn't a family without the beautiful flower that is the daughter. Mother, don't just sit there, tell Haruhi how much she still needs her father's guidance!"

Confused and more than a little annoyed, Haruhi began squirming in a desperate attempt to extricate her tear-soaked torso from the vise of Tamaki's hug.

"Senpai, what—"

"Why, Haruhi, why?! Daddy forbids it! I only get 3 as it is! What will we do if you stop coming? How can we deepen our father-daughter bond if—ack! Give her back!"

Haruhi sighed, relieved as she was disentangle from Tamaki's death grip, only to have her tear-drenched clothing begin to freeze as she met with the cold air that was radiating from her identical classmates.

"Would someone—"

"Not that we care…" Kaoru cut her off as he lied—from his stance, arms crossed, nose in the air, eyes directed purposely elsewhere, he was clearly very put out by whatever the hell they were talking about.

"…but who was it?" Hikaru finished for him, body similarly arranged in a careful display of determined disinterest that was belied by the slight color on his cheeks. Unlike his brother, he seemed slightly angrier than hurt, which worried her as she thought back to the incident in Karuizawa.

Haruhi's mind whirled as she tried to search her memory for something she might have done in the past few hours to offend her club mates. Coming up empty, she tried to voice her concerns.

"What…?" was the best she could manage at the moment, shivering slightly in her frost-lined attire and hoping they could translate her ineloquence into what she really meant to say, which was, "I don't know what you're talking about, I have just had the most nerve-wracking day, you are all acting weird(er), I have no idea why and can someone get me a blanket or something?"

But of course, such delicate comprehension was too much to ask, as was evidenced by the rush of air that was knocked out of her lungs when a short blonde cannonball barreled into her stomach and latched onto her waist, doing an impressive impression of Tamaki from below.

"Waaah! I don't want Haru-chan to leave!" Hunny wailed piteously into her abdomen, "You can have all the strawberries off my cake, Haru-chan, and I'll let you hold Usa-chan anytime you want, so please don't go!"

Haruhi staggered slightly, barely able to hold the small man's weight as he clung to her, and blinked down at him, her confusion multiplying exponentially. Where was she supposed to be going? As she opened her mouth to ask, a dark shadow fell over her. Resigned to her fate, Haruhi raised her eyes to meet Mori's dark expression.

She stared. If she didn't know better, she might have thought he was dangerously close to pouting, though anyone who didn't know Mori would have misread the expression on his expressionless face as sinister detachment. His eyes bored into hers as he pulled the sniffling, squirming bundle of despair that was Hunny off of her, his silent glare asking the same questions as the others with the same lack of explanation. He dragged his cousin back to the table, sat him in a chair, planted Usa-chan back in his arms and refused to meet her eyes again.

Kyoya just continued tapping his pen against the tabletop. Though his expression was unreadable as ever, Haruhi might have said that it was slightly raw, or shocked, as though he'd lost something he'd long taken for granted.

Train of thought permanently derailed, jack-knifed and leaking flammable substances, Haruhi closed her eyes and tried to assess the information she had been force fed over the past several seconds:

She had apparently done something _very_ wrong,

She was supposed to be going somewhere,

An ambiguous third party was involved and,

Whatever her transgression, it had occurred in the half hour between the end of class and now, since everyone had been acting their own versions of normal up until then.

There had to be a missing variable in this equation her club mates had set up for her to solve, and judging by the way Tamaki's face had been scrunching up a moment ago she had about two more seconds to figure it out before the whole process of accusation started all over again.

Her hand flew out to one side in time to stop Tamaki's advance just out of glomping range and she opened her eyes, doing her best to fix them all with a pointed stare in order to preempt any further attacks on her person.

"I'm sorry, but I have no idea what's going on. If I've done something wrong, please tell me so that I can do something about it. And stop looking at me like that! I—"

"Haruhi."

Finally, the Shadow King had emerged. The others quieted, leaving it to him to sort things out and avenge whatever grievous wrong had been committed against them. Haruhi didn't know whether to be nervous or relieved. He stood and calmly approached her. From inside his jacket he produced a small, black, non-descript envelope, which he handed to her without ceremony. The tidy characters written on the front spelled out her name in silver ink

"It seems an anonymous patron has generously repaid your remaining debt," he forthrightly informed her, his voice carefully toneless, "This was delivered along with the payment. You are no longer beholden to the Host Club, so you are free to leave the club at any time."

She blinked at him, unsure that she had heard him right. Someone had…

"You're kidding."

She didn't even bother to try keeping the incredulous delight out of her voice. She felt suddenly very light, as though the burden of 8 million yen had been the only thing holding her to the ground. She felt elation pulling at her lips, but the faces of her club mates remained grave.

The missing variable suddenly clicked neatly into place and the equation blithely unfolded a few of its mysteries to her. They thought she had asked someone to pay her debt for her, and now that she was free, she was going to leave the club. She was slightly shocked at how distressed they all seemed to be by the prospect, but it turned to warmth in her chest. They were good friends in their own bizarre way.

The warmth found its way into a smile.

"Good," she intoned with firm finality, and almost laughed as they flinched at her upbeat tone. Feeling a little bad for toying with them, she added, "I'll keep that in mind. Our clients are going to start showing up pretty soon. Shouldn't we be getting ready?"

She let her words sink in for a full five seconds, unable to keep herself from chuckling as their expressions dissolved from depression to realization, before she started towards the snack cupboard to lay out refreshments. She made it all of three steps before she heard several cries of joy from behind her.

Then all her growing good will evaporated as she was tackled from behind by Tamaki, Hunny and the twins in a monstrous group hug.

"Ahhh! Let go! Let go!" she cried helplessly as they snuggled her mercilessly.

"Never!" was their joyful rejoinder while beaming at her as though they couldn't believe she was real.

In the minute spaces between the press of bodies, Haruhi glimpsed Mori and Kyoya, who, though they had thankfully retained some of their composer, had approached and were smiling in a similarly awe-struck fashion. Apparently it had never occurred to any of them that she would do anything but turn tail and run the minute she was free of her obligation.

She made a mental note to show them more often how much they meant to her as she started kicking and hitting and climbing and screeching protestation on behalf of her personal space. They informed her that she was cute when she was irate and redoubled their efforts.

Once she managed to pry herself from their overzealous embrace, worn out and panting from exertion, she flopped down onto one of the sofas to recuperate. The others flatly refused to let her do anything as they scrambled about readying the room to receive customers. She dubiously consented, keeping a worried eye on Tamaki as he tried to set out the delicate China and the twins tossing sharp silverware carelessly onto trays.

"So if you didn't ask anyone to pay it, who did it then?" Hikaru and Kaoru wondered in unison, coming perilously close to overturning the tray on Tamaki as he concentrated on not spilling a shivering stack of teacups.

"Maybe it says in the letter," Hunny suggested around a mouthful of cake; with all the world back in proper working order, the constant influx of sugar had resumed.

Frowning, she pulled the letter from her jacket pocket, where she had managed to tuck it safely away before being affectionately crushed to death, and examined it. The envelope was made of high-quality paper, and the silver ink made the whole setup tastefully modern, elegantly sparse and mysterious. As she pulled it open, a familiar scent, faint but distinct, tugged at Haruhi's memory. Her fingers extracted a single sheet of crisp white stationary, folded over once, with a black rose pattern printed in the corner.

She had been right to count on the Host Club to distract her from her earlier concerns; in all the fuss and confusion she had completely forgotten about her conundrum. It hit her full force once more as she read the message neatly written before her.

_**We're very much a like, you and I. –N.**_

She gaped at the simple statement, her brain supplying the final answer to the complex equation even as it denied it. Last week's conversation with Nekozawa on the stairs flooded her memory.

"_I don't mind being taken for a guy, but I'd still like to have a choice, you know?" _

"_Yes, I do." _

"_I suppose you would. We're very much alike, you and I."_

Something flipped over in her chest as her cheeks began to burn.

_Nekozawa-senpai…_

She had said they were alike in that they both wished to be given a choice how to live, even if they would only choose to go on living as they were. And because of that…he had handed over 8 million yen, just because of that? Just…for her?

_Rich bastard will be rich bastards…but…_her heart beat a little harder.

_This is so extreme and unnecessary…but…_her face became a shade pinker.

_He really shouldn't have…but…_her mind was racing.

The fog around her thoughts began to clear slightly; she had been so wrapped up in her own confused feelings, she hadn't paused to look at the situation objectively.

Nekozawa had _kissed_ her. It had been a slow, uncertain action, triggered by her vague acceptance of him by telling him they were 'very much alike.' It had been a question, the same question mirrored in his eyes when they'd last parted on the stairwell, the one she couldn't figure out how to answer.

It had been a confession.

Haruhi wanted to smack herself. How could she be so dense? Her mind supplied her with an image of Arai-kun in response and she conceded that, okay, yes, she was very dense on a regular basis. Still! He had _kissed_ her!

From deep within her subconscious, the creature of sensation snickered.

_And you kissed him right back, _it reminded her_…rather forcefully…_

_He gave as good as he got!_ her inner voice returned heatedly before she could stop and realize that she was actually arguing to justify her embarrassment to herself.

_Ugh, I _am _becoming one of those hormone driven psychopaths. I'm going to start buying Renge's Host Club doujinshi, and swooning when Kaoru and Hikaru paw at each other, aren't I? And I'm going to start squealing when Hunny-senpai eats cake and sigh when Mori-senpai doesn't say anything and start falling for Kyoya-senpai's sales pitches and fainting when Tamaki-senpai takes my hand…_

She stopped to consider this.

_Nah._

Reassured that at least she wasn't yet _that_ far gone, she decided to call a temporary truce with the creature that was pulling her emotional strings. The point was moot. Regardless of how or why she had missed his confession, the important fact was that she realized it now. And the real question was of what to do about it.

In an attempt to gather her wits before her designators arrived, she strolled over to the window. For some reason, looking at the horizon always helped her think. However, it wasn't the horizon that she saw. Instead, she saw a dark figure sitting on a bench in the shadow of one of the tall hedges near the gate, probably waiting for his car.

_Finally_ she felt her irritation rise, along with something else she was too flustered to define. He was still here, but after shadowing her all day, he was just going to leave without so much as a word? What did he mean by doing something so generous and confusing then just leaving her to figure it out on her own? He had shaken her awake inside and made her notice parts of herself she didn't even know existed, made her notice him, and now…what? What exactly did he want from her?

_Damn rich bastards, with their fancy cars and spying on you all day without so much as a hello and confessing feelings without being clear…_she fumed uncharitably as she hurried towards the door, assuring the others that she'd be right back. It was not so much him she blamed as herself. She was angry that she could be so affected by another person so easily.

Her stride faltered.

She _wasn't_ affected by other people so easily. So why was it that he alone was able to turn her thoughts so far inside out? Why did thinking of him make feel so flushed and flustered, so frustrated and confused? Shaking her head, she sped her pace. She was going to get some answers so that she could put her head back into working order.

In her haste, she forgot all about the little white slip of paper she'd left laying on the coffee table, defenseless against curious prying eyes.

* * *

He had called his driver immediately after the end of class. He had been _very_ careful to avoid anywhere she might be. If she caught up to him after school he might have trouble finding a way to escape. And he would definitely need to escape. 

Because, quite frankly, he was panicking.

The trouble with having too much time to think was that there was much too much time to build up both expectations and doubts, causing one to swing between extremes like a pendulum, building momentum and moving farther and father from reality with each pass.

Umehito had spent his entire weekend with his leg propped on a pillow and his head in the clouds. Tucked cozily in his dark, familiar room, it was easy to forget that he was excruciatingly shy and just a look from Fujioka made him stumble over even the most basic motor functions. This is why, when he saw her in the hallway that morning, the pendulum, which had been stuck on hopes as he had arranged his gift to be delivered over the weekend, suddenly swung violently in the direction of fears.

In fact, it felt like said pendulum had hit him right in the stomach. Doubt curled around him like a constricting python.

What was he _thinking_?! This was Fujioka Haruhi, one of the smartest, most well-liked and admired students at Ouran Academy! And sure, he cared for her, and sure, he wanted to talk to her so bad he could taste it, and yes, yes, yes! she had _kissed_ him, but that didn't change the fact that she was Fujioka Haruhi, popular freshman girl (pretending to be a boy), and he was Nekozawa Umehito, a clumsy black-clad moth-boy with no friends, no charisma and no way to relate to her, no matter what he'd written in that note. (Oh. My. Dark. Gods. She was getting that today too!)

Which was why he did what he felt was the only justifiably sane thing open to him at the time: he turned and ran.

And he kept on running, right past his class room, up the stairs and into the relative safety of the currently unused Third Chemistry Lab (with dark room function) a.k.a. the lair of the Black Magic Club. He'd cradled his head in his hands as he'd paced back and forth trying to get a grip on his fluctuating emotions.

By the time he was ready to venture out into the world again, it had already been halfway through first period and he'd had to call Kuretake and beg her call the school and make up an excuse for his tardiness. Tragically, this had also involved telling her the dire circumstances that had led to his need for such an excuse.

"Ano…you see…there's…this girl…"

"Umehito-bocchama has fallen in love!"

"What? No, Kuretake-san—"

"Did you hear, Kadomatsu?" Kuretake ignored Umehito's feeble denials as she spread the juicy gossip to the rest of the household staff without even bothering to hang up first, "Spring has finally come for Umehito-bocchama! The fragile flower of love may truly blossom even the darkest and most desolate places!"

"Kuretake-san, I just—"

"Oh, what a splendid day! We must celebrate! I'll get the champagne—"

"Please, Kuretake-san, I just need you to call the main office—"

"Of course, obocchama, you need an alibi so that you can rendezvous in secret with your lover! Oh how romantic!"

"Um…" he sweat-dropped. Kuretake had been reading copious amounts shoujo manga to Kirimi lately, he reminded himself. "Right, exactly, so make sure it's a good excuse."

"Ooooh-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho! Leave it to me obocchama! Just you leave it to me! Ooooh-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho—" He snapped his cell phone shut quickly and shuddered, wondering if he would be any safer at home now than he was at school.

He had managed to make it to the rest of his classes on time, but in between classes, he constantly found himself gravitating towards the freshman section. The first time it had been completely by accident—he had been on his way to class and his double-crossing feet had just taken him in that direction.

When he had spotted her, he'd scrambled back into the shadow of a column. He knew he should get out of there, but he couldn't take his eyes off her. She didn't _seem_ to notice him and found he enjoyed watching her interacting with her classmates, smiling, talking, laughing…like watching a rare animal in its natural habitat. She was brilliant, but subdued. Perfect…beautiful…he was smitten.

Bereznoff kept looking at him like he was losing his mind, and he had stuck up his nose and pointedly told the cursed icon to mind its own business (he would definitely have to offer some incense and catnip on the altar later—it wouldn't do to go offending any prideful cat deities while his heart was in such a delicate state). He couldn't help himself. It wasn't as though these feelings were new – just newly acknowledged – but he couldn't seem to rein them in.

Moth and man were at war inside him, the man threatening to step on the moth if it didn't stop trying to walk into the flames and burn them both, the moth threatening to make him do something rash, like try to talk to her or run over and hug her; it was a precarious stalemate.

After the next class he'd been a little less irritated with himself when he ended up there again. And after the next, he'd gone there because it seemed like the natural thing to do. And then during lunch he'd hung inconspicuously as possible around the back of the cafeteria while the Host Club swarmed around her possessively because with the acrobatics his stomach was performing he wasn't all that hungry anyway. And after the next period it just seemed a shame to break the routine, so he kept at it until the final bell had rung.

He'd fully expected Takahashi, his driver, to be there when he ventured out into the afternoon sunlight, but the car was no where in sight. Only then did he remember Kuretake's words about getting champagne…surely they hadn't…

Half an hour later, the large courtyard all but deserted and still no car in sight, the only thing keeping Umehito from panicking again was that Fujioka was tied up at the Host Club. It didn't help him relax knowing that Takahashi had already delivered his 'little gift' on his behalf.

What would she think? Would it please her? Would she realize it was him that had sent it? After all, she must have lots of admirers. Did she even remember their conversation on Friday? If she did realize who had sent it, would she be pleased it was from him? What if she didn't realize? What if she thought it was from someone else? What if…

What if she liked someone else? The thought sent a spike of pain through his chest; the python of doubt that had been wrapped around him all day had sunk its fangs in to his neck for the kill.

It was useless. After all, even if she did realize it was from him, there was no way she would accept his feelings; that beautiful smile she had graced him with on their last meeting had intoxicated and bewitched him, making him do something foolishly brazen, but reality was returning with a vengeance. What could she possibly see in him when she was constantly surrounded by the charming, attractive men of the Host Club?

Bereznoff slouched on Umehito's hand as the black-clad boy's shoulders slumped miserably. No mere man could presume to reach out and capture the moon, and he would be a fool to presume he could capture the heart of Fujioka Haruhi.

Just as he came to this conclusion, two things happened. One was that his car finally pulled up in front of the gate. The other was that, as Takahashi pulled the door open for him, he heard someone call his name from farther up the walkway, sending a shockwave of anxiety ricocheting along his spine, in discordant, melodious counter point to the thrill of excitement the voice evoked. Bereznoff peeked over his shoulder to confirm what he already knew.

"Nekozawa-senpai! Please wait a moment!" Fujioka called once again, walking quickly in his direction. He suddenly felt a strange kinship for any wide-eyed cow that had ever stood on a set of tracks, helplessly watching a freight train barreling down on it.

Rather than a cow, however, he was a moth, which was why he was having so much trouble turning away from the sight of Fujioka rushing towards him through the mid-afternoon sunlight. What got him to move was the look on her face. She looked troubled, frustrated, upset even. There was a fierce determination in the set of her jaw.

His heart seemed to curl in on itself like a dying spider. She was angry with him?

_Of course she is, you idiot! First you kiss her in the hallway, now you're giving her gifts, and she probably just wants you to leave her alone!_ his mind snapped at him, turning his anxiety inward as anger at himself to anesthetize his aching heart, _You've only been causing her trouble and setting yourself up for a fall!_

It had been ridiculous for him to assume he could do something so bold! What right did someone like him have to force himself on someone like her? A man could not hold the moon, a moth did not have what it took to get the attention of a sloth and someone like Nekozawa Umehito could never endear himself someone like Fujioka Haruhi.

"I'm sorry…" he whispered almost inaudibly, and he didn't know if he was talking to her or himself.

Turning away from her and ducking into his car felt like tearing himself in two – his foolish heart leaping off his sleeve to scamper to Haruhi like a loyal puppy, while the rest of him ran to safety – but he just couldn't make himself face her. Knowing she didn't want him was enough; he neither wanted nor needed to hear her words of rejection.

As the car pulled away, he peered out the back window. Fujioka was slow moving, even for someone of her stature. She reached the gates just in time to watch the car pull out of the drive, staring after it as though she might be able to make it turn around by force of will alone.

The car windows were tinted, and the distance between them was growing by the moment, so as he turned away, unable to look at her any longer for fear he might actually do something stupid like tell Takahashi to stop the car, he didn't see the hurt shining in her eyes as the car sped away.

And neither of them noticed the dark silhouette framed in one of the third story windows, silently observing the scene below with critically perceptive eyes.

* * *

End Chapter 2

* * *

**Note: Whenever I was late for marching band practice, the director would ask "What's your excuse?" and if I or anyone else tried to tell him, we'd get whacked over the head with a sock puppet until we remembered the correct response: "There is no excuse!"**

_**::Bows shamefacedly::**_** Gomen nasai! I swear I meant to have this chapter out sooner! It was actually supposed to be longer – the planning is done, the problem is one of execution – but I'll just have to tack the rest of it on to the next chapter, which I am working on presently!**

_**::Gets whacked over the head with a sock puppet:: **_**There is no excuse! TT**

**Thank you to my reviewers for all the positive feedback! You have no idea how inspiring your kind words are! In the face of such sincerity, I can hardly justify procrastination, so keep'em coming! **

**I hope you enjoyed this second installment of Creatures of Sensation, and look forward to the third and final chapter in which we discover the precarious fate of our two awkward heroes!**

**Review! **


	3. Under the Rose

**Disclaimer:** Ouran High School Host Club, its plot and characters, belong to Hatori Bisco, and not me. Also, the song lyrics belong to HIM and not me.

**Note: **Oh dear, I did promise that this would be the last chapter, didn't I? I'm a big fat fibber. The final chapter was getting too long, so I split it up. This is NOT the last chapter, the next one is!

**CREATURES OF SENSATION**

**Chapter 5/6**

_**Under the Rose**_

_"I've been burning in water and drowning in flame  
__To prove you wrong and scare you away  
__I admit my defeat and want back home  
__In your heart under the rose."  
__-H.I.M._

Fujikoa Ryoji, alias Ranka-chan, secretly considered himself far more adept at being a woman than most women.

He knew the feminine arts of manipulation and flirtation. When he fell into character, he could be coy, subtle, bubbly, graceful, demure, or delicate with the best of them; bombshell or blushing beauty, Ranka could play the part.

He could also sprint a 100-meters dash in pantyhose and high heels and even pull off wearing polka dots with stripes if he had to. And he was particularly well versed in the art of applying make-up. He had once driven a greyhound bus through a tsunami while touching up his eyeliner and lip gloss and managed to arrive safely in Okinawa looking like he'd just stepped out of the salon – ah, for the good old days!

So when he accidentally smeared a jagged line of red across his cheek, ruining his favorite tube of lipstick as it broke along his cheekbone, it was clear that Haruhi's question had disturbed him considerably.

"Dad, how can you tell if you're in love?"

A fine, hairline crack appeared in the shell of reality.

"Ah, hah! Oh, dear, Haruhi," Ryoji laughed anxiously, "My ears are playing tricks on me! I thought I just heard you ask how to tell if you're in love! As if my precious little girl would need to know about something like that. Isn't that funny?"

He laughed some more, a little too loudly, as he cleaned up the mess on his cheek with a cotton ball. There were still smudges of red when he began frantically applying mascara to get his mind off the impossible.

Haruhi's eyebrows shot up into her bangs at her father's actions. It had just been a simple question. She tried again.

"I did," she told him, then flinched as the mascara wand trailed a dark path down his cheek.

Ryoji watched helplessly as the crack in his world widened, creating a slow leak of unreality into his universe. He turned to regard his daughter, who was doing a remarkable job of not commenting on his appearance; he looked like some kind of avant garde sad clown. She was also, incredibly, not snickering behind her hand or grinning at her clever joke.

She was just looking at him patiently, expectantly. Awaiting an answer. An answer to her question. The question about how to tell if you're…

_No, no, don't even think it, _he told himself soundly; a puddle of impossibilities was forming around him, threatening to ruin his shoes,_ If you don't think it, you can ignore it. If you ignore it, it will go away._

He smiled and nodded approvingly at his flawless logic as impossibility sloshed around his knees. Haruhi was still watching him with her large, adorable eyes, that wonderfully placid expression on her cute little face that she had been showing him for the past fifteen years.

"You're so adorable, Haruhi!" he cried delightedly, pulling her into a hug so tight there was no room for some horny, zit-faced, no-brain teenage boy to come between them.

"Dad!" Haruhi cried, trying to squirm out of his grasp and getting globs of black and red makeup all over her cheek in the process. It took only moments before she was free, having had years of practice escaping her father's sudden hug attacks, then stood up and set off towards the kitchen, rubbing absently at the errant makeup plastered on the side of her head.

"Never mind, I have to make breakfast anyway."

Fujioka Ryoji, alias Ranka-chan, secretly considered himself far more adept at being a woman than most women. But when it came right down to it, he was still a man; he was not a mom, he was a dad, and it was a dad's job to protect his daughter's virtue, not facilitate its destruction. He looked in the mirror and began touching up his face. When it was once more impeccable, he glanced at the picture of his dead wife he kept on the dresser. It was floating the rising tide of irrationality like a tiny island in the middle of a desolate ocean.

"Kotoko, what am I going to do with our baby? She's being very naughty; she just won't stop growing up."

He sighed and plastered a smile on his face as the unreality leaking into his world closed over his head, submerging him completely and making it a little hard to ignore. His shoulders were a little too rigid, his air of blithe ambivalence a little too forced as he bid his daughter an overly-fond farewell and headed off to work. He was glad he worked at a bar, because he really needed a drink just then.

* * *

Onii-chama sighed a lot lately. He sighed when he walked through the front door and said "I'm home." He sighed as he trudged up the stairs. He sighed as he picked at his food at the dinner table. He sighed when he was playing with Kirimi in the playroom. He even sighed in his sleep. 

Kirimi knew because she thought it was funny to sneak into his room early in the morning and pounce on him to wake him up. This morning, as she crept on her tip toes into his dark room, the hem of her pink princess nighty whispering along the carpet, to see him curled up under his big black blanket, she heard him sigh a name. Carefully, so as not to wake him, she climbed up on to his bed and crouched over him, staring at his normally serene sleeping face. His eyebrows were scrunched together as though he were thinking very hard.

"…Fujioka…" Sigh. "…mmm…mm mmm…wait for me, Fujioka…" he mumbled. Then another sigh.

Kirimi knew what sighing meant. Plenty of characters in Kuretake-chan's shoujo manga sighed. As she stared down at Onii-chama, he stirred, then cracked opened his eyes and looked right at her, surprised yet not that she was hovering above him.

"Ohayo, Kirimi," he yawned and smiled a small, sleepy smile.

"Onii-chama is in love," she informed him in return, then nearly fell off the bed as he sat bolt upright in bed to stare at her in surprise. She had to grab one of his pillows to keep from toppling over, which she lobbed clumsily at him. He caught it easily and bopped gently over the head with it and she fell in love with him all over again. Onii-chama was always so gentle, even though he acted scary when other people were around.

"What a silly thing to say, Kirimi," he admonished, his outburst of shock hidden behind a sleepy expression as he tweaked her ear, though he looked her in the nose as he said it. Onii-chama always looked at her nose when he was fibbing. He pulled his hand back quickly as she batted at it. Onii-chama was so fast, she could never catch him!

"It's not silly," she insisted, climbing off the bed and scampering over to the table where Onii-chama kept his 'dark icons' and carried Onii-chama's cursed doll, Bereznoff, back over to where Onii-chama had scooched up to settle his back against the headboard. "You sigh and sigh and sigh all the time. That means you're thinking about the woman you love, and you 'feel a deep longing inside' and you have to sigh to 'fill the emptiness where she belongs in your arms,'" she told him astutely, quoting from something Kuretake had read to her the other day.

Umehito cocked his head to one side and gazed at Kirimi thoughtfully. Kirimi fell in love with him all over again as he smiled wistfully at her. Then he shooed her off the bed.

"Alright, little one, out now," he ordered, "Get back to your room before they come looking for you."

Kirimi giggled and scurried out the door. Onii-chama didn't seem to notice that she left the door ever so slightly ajar, or that she stopped just outside to peek in through the crack. Instead he sighed again.

"Am I in love, Bereznoff?" he asked the puppet that was laying on his bed. Bereznoff didn't answer, and Onii-chama didn't speak again. He stared at nothing for a moment, then suddenly jumped off his bed and crouched down to root around underneath it. When he stood back up, he was holding a familiar notebook. He was always writing things in it. Kirimi had looked through it when Onii-chama wasn't home. It was mostly full of words that Kirimi couldn't read, but that wasn't what she checked for. What Kirimi loved to look for were Onii-chama's drawings.

Kirimi watched through the sliver in the door as Onii-chama fished a pencil out of his desk drawer and settled back on his bed. She could tell he was drawing by the way his head bent so that his hair fell over his cheeks. If he was writing, he would tuck his hair back behind his ears, but if he was drawing, he didn't seem to notice it.

Kirimi watched, fascinated for several minutes until, at last, he straightened up and observed the notebook page with a look of resigned satisfaction. He sighed again.

"Fujioka-san. Ha…Haruhi-san…Haruhi. Fujioka Haruhi…you _are_ beautiful…"

Then he sighed again and Kirimi giggled and had to run down the hall as fast as her little legs would go so that he wouldn't hear her.

* * *

She had tried to study. She really, truly had. She wanted to. She needed to. 

She couldn't.

Every time she stared at the black ink on the white pages, she saw a black figure, framed in the white light of mid-afternoon sunlight walking away from her, ignoring her as she called his name, leaving her alone with strange and uncomfortable questions and without any answers to make them go away. It made her feel helpless and lonely.

She had tried to do chores. She really, truly had. She wanted to. She needed to.

She couldn't.

Every dish she washed, every pass of the broom, every task she completed reminded her of the debt she no longer had to repay, which reminded her of his generosity, which got her thinking of all his other endearing qualities, his shy smile, his darkly gentle nature, his determination, so passionate that it bordered on comical. It made her feel warm and content.

She had tried to go to bed. She really, truly had. She wanted to. She needed to.

She couldn't.

Every time she turned out the light, her memory showed her the darkness under his hood as he'd drawn near her, and every time she closed her eyes, she felt the sensation of his lips ghosting over her own. It made her feel flushed and desperate.

This was why, when the door to the Fujioka residence swung inward at 3:30 in the morning, a very inebriated Ranka, arm slung over a fellow okama, found Haruhi still awake and doing something she rarely ever did: watching TV.

Ranka turned to his counterpart.

"Better bring an umbrella," he slurred, snickering as he stumbled in, "It's gonna rain tomorrow."

Half an hour later, with the help of Ranka's coworker and some industrial strength make-up remover, Ranka was transformed back into Ryoji and tucked into bed to sleep off his bender. After showing the harried okama out and tidying up the living room, she wet a cloth with cool water and knelt beside her intoxicated father. Sake gave him a monstrous hangover, but Haruhi had found that a cool cloth on his forehead while he slept alleviated the worst of his headaches.

She pursed her lips as she gazed down at him, drunk and disheveled. His love for her mother, and the loss of her, was what had done this to him. Was _this_ what became of those that fell in love? Why would anyone willingly subject themselves to this lonely desperation? Shakespeare may have preferred to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all, but did her father? And, premature as it may be…did she?

Maybe…it was better just to leave it alone, to lock away that creature of sensation some where dark and barren, where it couldn't do any damage, and live in a vacuum.

With a sigh, she made to move away when Ranka's hand curled weakly around her wrist. He wasn't coordinated enough to stop her, but she paused anyway. She'd assumed he was asleep and wanted to make sure he was comfortable before she returned to her own room to fail to sleep.

"Your moo--ooother," he yawned blearily, "She was kind…strong…beautiful…good cook…loved her …still do…" he smiled crookedly to himself and turned his blood-shot eyes in Haruhi's direction, though his pointed look landed somewhere over her left shoulder. His deeply serious expression was just a bit too comical, but something in it made Haruhi pay attention. "She also snored, always took the last piece of sushi and was a closet Zukabu fanatic…" He stretched stiffly, letting his eyes slip closed, though a ghost of his smile remained, "…I loved her anyway…its how I knew...how I could...tell…little Haruhi…"

Haruhi's eyes widened as the point of her father's broken lecture dawned on her.

"That's how you tell? How you can tell if you're in love?" she pressed, slightly embarrassed at the eagerness in her voice, "As in 'like them for their good points, love them for their faults'?"

The only answer she received was a light snore.

Haruhi remained by Ryoji's side for a few moments more before tucking the covers up to his chin and retiring to her own room to stare at the dark ceiling.

…_Like him for his good points, love him for his faults…_

She needed to think about this concept. And what to do with it.

* * *

The following days were an exercise in inefficiency and first class futility as both Haruhi and Umehito went to remarkable lengths to avoid one another. Unfortunately, since neither realized that the other was avoiding them, they both tended towards places that neither of them usually ventured, and in doing so, bumped into each other far more than they normally would. These unexpected meetings usually ended in one or both of them running back the way they'd come, and left them frazzled and agitated, late to class or club activities and generally put out and frustrated. 

Unbeknownst to either of them, their antics did not go unnoticed. Interested eyes observed covertly, glancing askance at the display of distraction, their odd movements and flushed appearances. Speculations abound, conclusions were drawn and an agreement reached. The Black Magic Club was encroaching on Host Club territory. This insurrection could not go answered.

* * *

Umehito trudged dejectedly up the stairs towards the Third Chemistry Lab (with dark room function). Meeting with the Black Magic Club was usually the highlight of his week, but today the plush carpet under his shoes was sand and his legs were lead. He paused midway up, gazing forlornly at the opposite wall of the staircase, the very spot where he'd thrown himself willingly into the flames and been happily immolated. 

He could almost have believed it had been a dream if it weren't for the way Fujioka had been acting all week long. Some cruel trick of fate had thrown them together more often in the past few days than they had ever been in all the time they had been going to Ouran Academy together, and where before Fujioka always had a kind smile and a word of greeting, now he received only shocked embarrassment and the sight of her back as she fled his presence.

He bit his lip. Clearly she hated him. Why else would she _literally_ run from him?

And what had he expected, really? Umehito was a moth. He of all people knew that if you walk into the fire, you're certain to be burned, no matter how gently the light beckoned or what warmth lay therein.

To his surprise, however, his personal metaphor didn't entirely sync up with what he was experiencing. It wasn't a burning, this feeling inside. Rather, it was cold and hollow; a heaviness that ached horribly, like something had been carved out of his chest and set as a yoke upon his shoulders.

The darkness in which he'd always thrived was cold and lonely as never before, yet the light remained terrifying and unattainable. Even as he retreated into the comfort of the shadows, he couldn't help but long for the warmth promised by the flickering flame he now knew existed somewhere inside him.

He was not himself at all.

Umehito was resting all his hope on Bereznoff and the comfortable familiarity of the dark rites of the Black Magic Club to ease his sorrows. Though his trudging had made him late, he'd been looking forward to it all day long, the security of routine a respite from feeling and thought.

So imagine his surprise when, upon arriving at the door to the Third Chemistry Lab (with dark room function), he found a note taped to the door informing him that he had cancelled the Black Magic Club meeting for today.

For a moment he stood, blinking in bewilderment through the fall of his dark wig, at the slip of paper bearing his signature that he was certain he had _not_ pasted there. Then the time for idle wonderment was over as the door suddenly swung inward with a sucking _whoosh!_ and a none-too-gentle pair of hands at his back shoved him firmly over the threshold and into the inky darkness beyond.

* * *

End Chapter 3

* * *

**Note: Cliffhanger! Muwahahahahaha::is evil:: I also kick puppies for fun!**

**Nah, puppies are alright, though _I_ might not be for making everyone wait so long for an update. I fear I have sock puppets in my future...::bows:: Gomen nasai! **

**Thank you so much to all my reviewers, you make my world go 'round! The more I get, the faster I write, so don't forget to click the little button just south of here and leave me one! **

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please stay tuned for the final chapter in which we learn the fate of our unlikely heros!**

**Review!**


	4. Pretending

**Disclaimer: **Ouran High School Host Club, its plot and characters, belong to Hatori Bisco. The song lyrics belong to HIM. Anything else is mine, so ask before borrowing ^_^

**Obnoxiously and Unnecessarily Long Note: **Eh heh heh… I hardly dare show my face in an author's note, since this chapter is about… *glances at the clock* five years late? *faceplant* Wah! If anyone is still reading this, please forgive this unworthy delinquent of a fanfic author! I deserve punishment, so I'll take Haruhi's place and work off my debt as a host… *realizes that's not much of a punishment… says nothing* _

Big thanks **ChicFreakSistaFierce**, who reminded me that I had completely left this story hanging in the wind. I may never have remembered to finish it without your message, so _domo arigato gozaimasu_!

Speaking of finishing it - since I'm on a roll with the whole sadistic evil slow author thing - this is once again not the last chapter *ducks rotten tomatoes* because it turned out too long when I wrote it, so I broke it in half! I swear the next chapter is the last chapter. Yes, yes, why should you believe me, I've said it before, liar-liar-otaku-on-fire. Ah, but the difference: the last chapter is already written! Just needs editing, and its all yours! So be sure to review, your words of support/shame will motivate/guilt me into working more quickly! Again *bows deeply* my humble apologies for such a tardy update, and please enjoy the story!

* * *

**Chapter 2(2^2 +1)+1 / √144**

**(Shut up! My math is right!)**

_Love is a flame that can't be tamed_

_And though we are its willing prey_

_My darling, we are not the ones to blame…_

_So keep on pretending_

_This will be the end of our craving_

_Keep on pretending it's alright_

_-H.I.M._

Haruhi stared in trepidation through the wrought-iron staves of the front gate that opened onto the Nekozawa estate. She glanced at the slip of paper she'd written the address on to be sure she was in the right place. A pointless bit of stalling; it was clear at a glance that this was Nekozawa's home.

A stretching drive ended at the front stairs of a sprawling mansion in which was represented bits of the Gothic and the Victorian, with hints of classic Russian architecture thrown in to create something oddly regal, if outdated and slightly off-putting. Its frigid stone façade was terribly out of place in the heart of Japan, though the grounds had been manicured to compliment its intentional look of antiquity. Haruhi half expected a brooding storm cloud to be hanging as a permanent fixture over the vaulted roofs and spires. A pair of bronze cat icons adorned the double-hinged gate, their tales intertwining at the latch as they glared down at whoever might be foolish enough to stand before them and seek entrance. Haruhi was not cowed. Or, more accurately, she was not cowed by the gleaming metal cats, or the forbidding architecture, or even the perceived threat of thunderheads.

What scared Haruhi was that she was standing outside of Nekozawa's house with not a clue as to what she thought she was doing there. Day after day of bumping into him in spite of her best efforts to hide, coupled with that pesky creature of sensation constantly gnawing at the base of her brain, had well and truly fried her nerves, so she supposed she might be able to plead insanity. Somewhere deep in her subconscious, an unrealistically optimistic voice that sounded a whole lot like her mother whispered she was finally besting the beast.

But the rest of her was pretty sure it was simple, garden-variety madness.

What it came down to was that, though she still hadn't decided exactly what she wanted from him, Haruhi had decided it was high time she found out what he wanted from her. Maybe if she knew what was being offered, she'd know whether or not she'd want to accept.

She did know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there was no way to guess on her own. She had been trying – constantly – but there was no sane pattern to his actions! Giving her gifts, but refusing to speak to her? Kissing her, but then running away from her? There was nothing to divine, no intent to infer, not a shred to derive!

It was all so terribly confusing. She had tried to apply simple logic to the situation, had meditated on the subject while she should be studying, had daydreamed of it when she should have been taking notes in class, but every time an answer seemed within her reach, that elusive creature of sensation would wriggle and worm its way in and steal it away, then arch and slink off like a cat that didn't want to be held.

The only approach Haruhi found left to her, strange as it seemed, was the direct one. She hated that she had left it to last, as it was not her way to be anything but direct. Logic and common sense had absconded to the dark side where the creature of sensation lurked. Haruhi was not herself at all, and she found she was beginning to miss herself.

The Host Club was, for some unnamed reason, not in session today, so Haruhi had decided that it was providence and had launched into action before she could come back to her senses. After looking up her senpai's address in the school registry, she had headed straight there after school in order to corner and confront him once and for all.

Now here she stood, still as a stone, before the elegant gates, her apparently fractured senses coming together once more. Anxiety, irritation and a curious longing jostled inside her like too many people trying to squeeze through a doorway at once. She at last decided that she was waiting to see which one would push through first.

It was entirely possible that she would have gone on waiting all day if the aforementioned providence had not stepped in once again and sent her a little helper.

"Gariben! Gariben!" shrieked a gleeful voice behind her.

Shocked out of her single-minded vigil, Haruhi whirled to find herself face to face with a quietly purring car that was obligingly _not_ running her over as it queued behind her for a turn at the gate. And poking through the sunroof, all blue eyes and shining blond pigtails, was the cherubic Nekozawa Kirimi.

"Kirimi-chan!" Haruhi greeted, still too dazed at the sudden apparition to come up with anything more polite.

Quicker than Haruhi would ever have imagined a small child could move, Kirimi scrambled out the car door and latched her tiny form onto Haruhi's leg.

"Gariben, did you come to read me more shoujo manga?" Kirimi demanded eagerly, eyes shining with childish delight at the memory of hours spent lounging in the high school section at Ouran as Haruhi dutifully dictated the dialogue of issue upon issue of sordid stories.

"Oh, um…not today, Kirimi…I can't…don't have time…"

Kirimi was having none of that. Even as Haruhi stammered her protests, the pre-schooler dragged her into the car and ordered the driver, with an air of authority unbecoming such a small child, to drive on. The imposing iron gates swung inwards and Haruhi, feeling like a helpless observer in her own life, watched through the tinted windows as the car glided past the gleaming cat icons that guarded the grounds.

Was it her imagination, or were their eyes glinting at her with a malevolent satisfaction? Their silent laughter seemed to echo after the car as the gates swung closed with a solid finality.

* * *

In spite of the inky blackness of the Third Chemistry Lab (with dark room function), it had been apparent from the start who his attackers were; their voices echoed loud and clear and familiar through the darkness. Not that Umehito let them know; they were trying so hard to keep it from him that he didn't have the heart to tell them he'd already noticed.

"Grab him!"

"Get the rope!"

"No, that's _my_ leg!"

"Close the door!"

"Is this really necessary, Tama –"

"No names, Mother!"

"I said that's _my_ leg, Hikaru!"

"No names, men! Anonymity!"

"_Let go of my leg!_"

Umehito had been kidnapped, in his own club room, in the dark, by the Host Club.

Well, the Host Club sans-Fujioka. In the absolute darkness, he couldn't tell if she was present or not, but surely, were she amongst them, she wouldn't be participating in something like this. Would she? The dark, nagging little voice that had long been dibbing seeds of doubt scoffed at his foolish hope. _Why not? She has no fondness for _you_! _He ignored it as best he could, telling himself that he really should be more worried about the fact that he was about to be hog-tied and hauled off somewhere.

"Kaoru, where did you go? I can't see a thing!"

"Over here, by the…the…I don't know what this thing is…"

"Wah! Usa-chan! The dark is scary, Takashi!"

"We're not supposed to call each other by name, Mitsukuni."

"Oh yeah!"

"Aaah! Why do you keep grabbing my leg?"

"I'm not, I'm over here!"

"What the…"

"Hey, watch out for that – !"

There was a thunderous crash and some impolite language and moments later Umehito found himself caged within a blinding circle of light. Suddenly more terrified than he had been since the inception of his incarceration, he shrank from the glare with a whimper, only to fall gracelessly into a waiting chair. Utterly unbalanced, he was defenseless as a length of rope was wrapped around his middle several times, pulled tight and secured so that he was well and truly immobilized.

A tiny knot of real worry formed Umehito's stomach. The Hosts weren't cruel or violent, but memories of the Hitachiin twins and their idea of a good time sent a little thrill of panic up his spine. What in the world could they want with him?

"Hah! Phase One complete! Good work, men!" announced Suoh triumphantly.

There was a pause during which Umehito squirmed like a grasshopper under a magnifying glass.

"Now…what?"

"What?"

"That's what I'm asking."

"This was your idea!"

Umehito gave up trying to burrow into his collar and settled for hunching over so that the shadow of his hood fell over his face like a shield. Bereznoff twitched about behind is back, searching for a way to loosen the rope and finding none.

There was another long pause. Apparently this had been a spur-of-the-moment endeavor and now that they had their prize, they didn't quite know what to do with it.

"Well, since you're all here," Umehito ventured hopefully, "why not untie me and help me chant some spells? Or for fun, we could call spirits of the dead or count corners or weave some hexes. Is there anyone you hate? We could vex them soundly. I'll even give you some cursed icons, free of charge. What do you say? It'll be a fun half hour!"

"Silence!" Suoh commanded, falling back into the roll of the evil kidnapper, "Captives don't get to ask questions! We'll do the talking here! Mother…do the talking here."

"Oh for pity's sake," growled an irritated Ohtori. The shadows outside the unidirectional lamp they had trained on Umehito shifted and a whisper of light reflected ominously off a pair of glasses set threateningly on a vaguely human-shaped shadow that hung just outside the light. Umehito suddenly had no trouble believing the fearful whispers and urban mythology surrounding the so-called Shadow King of the Host Club.

"Nekozawa Umehito," Ohtori intoned in dangerously, deceptively soft syllables, "Did you or did you not repay Fujioka Haruhi's eight million yen debt to the Ouran Host Club?"

"Eh?" Umehito blanched. Of all the…_this_ was why they had kidnapped him? _This _was why they had tied him to a chair and were trying to cook him with a heat lamp? This…this…this…

This made perfect sense. In their own twisted, particular way, they were defending Fujioka's honor. While he'd been making things difficult for her all the while, they were trying to make things right. His neck felt boneless as he hung his head.

"I…it's not what you think…" he muttered miserably.

"Admit it!" Suoh cried suddenly, popping up beside Ohtori, his eyes flickering red with accusation that refracted through a waterfall of tears, "Tell the truth! You actually used your dark arts to place a mind control curse on my precious daughter, and forced her to do unwholesome and immoral things on a satanic altar to your dark Gods!"

"I…wait, WHAT?"

"Why else would she keep running away? Her pure, virginal mind was corrupted by your wicked ways, so much that she's developed a temporary amnesia. But whenever she sees you, she remembers the animal sacrifice she was forced to perform…and then the dominatrix broke out the whips and ball gags and…

"Stop sleep-talking while you're awake," Ohtori reprimanded the ranting Frenchman. But Tamaki was lost in his inner theater, which was currently showing an erotic slasher film starring the president of the Black Magic Club and his precious daughter, and could only whimper pitifully and wilt like a dead rose.

"That…doesn't even make sense…" Umehito muttered, mostly to himself, then drove another nail into his coffin with: "…erotic rituals can only be done on _Walpurgis_ Night… it's not even summer right now…"

There was a small sonic boom and a mushroom cloud erupted above Suoh as his head exploded just a little. Then a bell tolled and the King of the Host Club seemed to collapse into a lifeless shell, smoke drifting out of his ears and all.

"Ah, there he goes again," Haninozuka observed from somewhere off to the left.

"Ah," Morinozuka replied.

Before Suoh could take his tantrum to a new level, a pair of identical shadows loomed large in the darkness before him, eyes glowing with golden fury, teeth bared like gleaming razors.

"Look at him," said one of the Hitachiins, even less identifiable than ever in the darkness, "He's clearly guilty."

"Guilty as sin," the other concurred, punching his palm with a disturbing _smack_, "Let's punish him."

"Eh?!" he repeated frantically, his head shooting up only to get a sixty watt shock of luminescence and jerk back down. He decided he was going to look into suing for whiplash.

"What have I told you two about committing crimes I have to cover up?" Ohtori admonished boredly.

"That's only a problem if there's evidence," the twins replied in unison.

Panic flared, and Umehito's tongue started wagging as if it had a mind of its own.

"W-wait, there's no need for that! I didn't mean to insult Fujioka, I just wanted…I felt so…and I thought she might…I realize now how stupid I've been…she is so kind and gentle…I thought…that is…I mean it was just one kiss and she kissed me back and I just wanted to do something nice for her and I didn't mean to upset her, so please forgive me!"

There was a resounding silence in the wake of his outburst during which the darkness seemed to grow much darker, the light much brighter and the temperature of the room much lower. Umehito suddenly wished he'd just taken his beating like a good little hostage. There was a sort of hissing sound emanating from the general direction of the Hitachiin twins and he redoubled his efforts to burrow into his collar.

Suddenly as a pair of hands grabbed him by said collar and jerked him forward against the strain of the ropes, knocking his hood back and throwing his black wig to the floor. Umehito was so surprised to be staring nose to nose into Suoh-kun's stormy, wide-eyed expression that he forgot to be afraid of the light pouring over their exposed skin and glittering off their golden hair.

"What did you say?" Suoh breathed, his voice airy with disbelief, his aristocratic French features a two-tone alien landscape in the harsh light of the lamp. To Umehito's unfettered relief, the younger boy didn't seem to be angry, or even upset, just stunned, at Umehito's words or his own actions or both. In fact, he seemed to be unable to process any emotion other than pure astonishment at the moment. He released Umehito's collar as though it were a glowing cinder, but he didn't back off. "What did you say?" he repeated, more firmly this time.

"I…er…which part?" Umehito wondered lamely, then flinched as Hikaru and Kaoru, with identical murderous glimmers in their eyes, tried to tackle him, only to be restrained by Haninozuka and Morinozuka. Up to that point, Umehito's two classmates had been mere spectators, so Umehito found himself pathetically grateful that they were, if not on his side, at least impartial enough to keep him from being slaughtered in his own sanctuary.

Without warning, in the midst of the scuffling and grumbling and confused staring, the glare of the lamp went devastatingly dark, shocking everyone to stillness. In the sudden lull was heard the hiss of a match being struck, and when everyone's eyes adjusted, they found Ohtori sitting nonchalantly on one of the Black Magic Club's Victorian lounges, a candelabra glowing warmly on the table next to him as he surveyed their disarray with cool superiority.

Was it Umehito's imagination, or was the glass-wearing junior hemorrhaging an evil aura of lavender light?

"Well, Tamaki, now that you've shown Nekozawa-senpai your face and rendered this whole ridiculous affair pointless, can we please sit down and talk like rational individuals?" He cast a withering look at the pile of freshmen and the seniors restraining them, all frozen mid-tussle to stare at the Shadow King in surprise. They immediately rearranged themselves into more civilized positions. "Hikaru, Kaoru, untie Nekozawa-senpai," he went on, "And Tamaki, sit down before you fall down."

Indeed, the wind sucked from his sails, the Host King looked as though someone had bombed his corpus collosum, lain waste to his medulla oblongata and tied his menengies in knots. He seemed to be running on autopilot as he meekly obeyed and lowered himself onto the lounge next to Ohtori with a robotic clang, staring blankly at Umehito as though he were seeing him for the first time.

"Now then, Nekozawa-senpai," Ohtori continued once Umehito had been grudgingly released, his voice snapping with authority in spite of his calm tone, "I'm afraid we're all a bit perplexed about your interaction with Haruhi. Why don't you enlighten us? In complete sentences this time, if you don't mind."

It was phrased as a request, but the demand was clear. Suddenly very tired from the burden of chasing his own doubts around in circles, Umehito was ready to throw it at someone else's feet. He felt only the slightest tremor of nerves as he tossed caution to the wind, took a deep breath, and poured his heart out.

* * *

"Are you a lesbian?"

It took Haruhi several long seconds to register what she had just been asked, and several more to reconcile the words with the picture of innocence that had spoken them.

Even then, the best she could do was a flimsy-sounding, "What?"

"Are you?" Kirimi asked, her curious blue eyes peeking up at Haruhi from beneath the heavy black holocaust cloak she had donned as soon as they had reached the her playroom. "I mean, why else would you dress like a boy?"

"I…no, I'm not," Haruhi replied, stunned. There really was no hiding from the eyes of a child. "How did you know I'm a girl?"

The look Kirimi gave her said that she had just won an award of some sort for stupidest question this side of the century.

"Doesn't everyone?" she returned flippantly, then proceeded to ignore Haruhi as she searched busily for something or other on a shelf lined with Gothic Lolita china dolls, her plans for a manga marathon mercifully forgotten.

When Kirimi had dragged her through the ornately carved front door, the critical once-over she'd received from the head maid, Kuretake-san, had given Haruhi false hope. Those had been succinctly dashed when the eccentric woman smiled and greeted her with all the melodrama Haruhi remembered she possessed.

"Fujioka-kun!" Kuretake had greeted, dropping a small, gracious curtsey, "We are eternally grateful for your help in bringing the young master and the young mistress closer as siblings! Please enjoy your afternoon!"

Haruhi had had to wonder as Kirimi had led her down the passage off the foyer what the Nekozawa household staff found acceptable about a four-year-old having a teenager over for a play date.

Now, relegated to background scenery for the time being, Haruhi took a moment to examine the set Kirimi was rummaging through. With her oversized stuffed cat doll clutched in one black draped arm, her rooms decked out in an unorthodox fusion of whimsical frill and wicked occult, Kirimi had certainly taken a shine to her brother's way of life. The reflection of Nekozawa in the little girl before her brought an unexpected smile to her face.

She had a beautiful doll collection, the kind only the obscenely rich could afford to provide their children. Each doll was delicately made-up with silk, lace and ribbons in shades of black, white, scarlet and lavender. Their tiny lips were painted ink black or blood red, their little eyes ringed in kohl, their pallid cheeks splashed with just a hint of pink. Some carried delicate bags, intricately painted fans or parasols fringed with tassels.

Dolls had never been of particular interest to the pragmatic, borderline-androgynous Haruhi, but even she could appreciate obvious beauty when it presented itself, even the gaudy, dark sort these dolls evoked.

"Here!" Kirimi cried triumphantly, pulling her long-sought prize from the back of the shelf to present to her unwilling guest with a clumsily adorable flourish, "I had to hide it so Onii-chama wouldn't find it. See? It's you!"

It was indeed, though not as Haruhi had ever seen herself. The little figurine had Haruhi's pixie-fine features, large brown eyes and short brown hair. The frame of its body was slight and slender, altogether small, just like hers. The resemblance was remarkable, but that was where the similarity ended.

The doll wore a quarter sleeve, square-neck vermillion shift that ballooned slightly over the chest to compensate for its insubstantial size. The waist was cinched tight from below the bust to the curve of the hip with a lace-decked black girdle that laced up the front with black ribbons. From beneath the girdle bloomed a short, ruffled skirt of the same color as the shift that might have fallen to the doll's knees had it been allowed. Instead, it fanned around the doll, numerous black frills and miniature petticoats giving it the appearance of an inside out flower that fell to the middle of the doll's thigh. Its arms and legs were both sheathed in sheer, clinging black nylon. The forearms were braced with stiff black velvet gauntlets, laced like the bodice with black ribbon, while the calves were wrapped in criss-crossing black ribbon that tied in streaming black bows just below the frilly riot of the skirt, leaving a few inches of leg undecorated and strangely enticing.

The ensemble was completed by a tiny black ribbon tied in the hair on one side of the doll's head so that the tails trailed down the side of its face like a black silk waterfall, shocking against the doll's fair complexion; if the doll was turned just so, it appeared to be peeking coyly from behind the ribbon.

The effect was astonishing. Haruhi had to wonder: if the doll could affect such mysterious beauty, could she as well?

Of course, that begged the question: why should she care? Haruhi had never given two sniffs about appearance. Why now was she suddenly considering ways to make herself more becoming? Ridiculous…

"It had longer hair before," Kirimi went on proudly as Haruhi admired the black finger nails and painted lips, "but I had Kuretake cut it so she looks you, Gariben!"

"Could you please stop calling me – wait, what?" She frowned suspiciously. Kirimi may have realized she was a girl, but why would she want a doll modeled after her? "Kirimi, why would you want a doll that looks like me?" she wondered.

Kirimi grinned impishly, as though she had been waiting for Haruhi to ask. Was this really a four-year-old?

"Come with me! I'll show you!"

Not waiting for objections, Kirimi took Haruhi's hand and dragged her from the playroom with the relentless tenacity of a very small, very cute steamroller, and down the corridor. From there, Kirimi took them left down a middle corridor which opened onto a massive space, perhaps a reception room, or even a ballroom. The main lights were dimmed; the midafternoon sunlight slanting though high windows filtered through the partially drawn velvet drapes to lend the shadows some depth. Kirimi led Haruhi across the room to a wide staircase that rose to a landing where the stairs diverged to separate wings of the house.

On the landing, Haruhi, slow as ever, was graciously allowed a moment to catch her breath. And her breath did indeed catch when she looked up to take in the portrait hanging above the stair.

"Nekozawa-senpai," she breathed. Her knees actually felt weak as she took in the unexpected sight of the Nekozawa heir, sans occult affectations, his blond locks framing his elegant face and kind blue eyes, dressed in royal attire like the fairytale prince Kirimi saw in him.

"Isn't Onii-chama handsome?" Kirimi gushed, favoring the portrait with an adoring look before she turned her attentions to the stuffed cat toy that had accompanied them on their little sojourn into the unknown recesses of the Nekozawa estate.

Haruhi was hard pressed to disagree. Sometimes it was easy to forget that under the black cloak and creepy airs, there hid a beautiful Japanese-Russian aristocrat with a gentle heart. In fact, it was something of a relief to see him that way. She needn't fault herself for her confusing attraction to him. Who wouldn't be drawn to such an appealing creature? It need not be anything serious…

The respite of relief was short-lived as a wave of epiphany washed over Haruhi, who could only stare helplessly up at the angelic portrait. For it hadn't _been_ the prince that had awoken the creature of sensation inside her. Rather it had been the shy, awkward, puppet-toting, photophobic occult fanatic with a benign stalking habit that had somehow shook her to the core.

_Like him for his good points, love him for his flaws…_

Was it even possible? Haruhi's forehead sank against her open palm, her eyes drifting closed in incredulous surrender. She would never have believed…but strange as it all seemed, Haruhi was done avoiding herself and skirting the truth.

So, love, eh? Well, there were many ways to live, after all, and while Haruhi had never really considered the possibility, she decided perhaps she'd give it a try.

This decision came, as so many of her decisions these days, far too late to change anything. But it was just in time for her to open her proverbial arms to catch the creature of sensation as it leapt into her embrace and snuggled against her fondly. The two of them had a lot of catching up to do.

That, however, would have to wait, for Kirimi had decided that break time was over and was yanking Haruhi up the staircase into even deeper shadows than those that haunted the hall below. Right. Then left. Then another left. Then up another flight of stairs. Left, right, right, down a short flight, left, left, right, up another…after that, Haruhi couldn't remember. How big could one house be? Damned rich bastards. It wasn't long before Haruhi was completely lost in the maze of shadowy corridors. Kirimi, however, seemed completely at home in her oversized abode, taking every turn with practiced familiarity that somehow put Haruhi foolishly at ease.

"Gariben?"

"Haruhi."

"Onee-chan," Kirmi compromised, "Are you my brother's girlfriend?"

Every one of Haruhi's poor, overwrought nerves, which had begun to quiet under the familiar strain of being forced to do pointless things against her will (the Host Club was good for something after all!), suddenly sprang to life and started jumping around like livewires

"Eh heh, heh, heh!" Haruhi shrilled nervously, "Wh-what would make you ask something like that?" she evaded as Kirimi pushed open a heavy wooden door midway down the long shadowy corridor they had entered from the stairs.

"The drawing…" Kirimi replied unhelpfully.

Dropping Haruhi's hand at last, she scrambled to her hands and knees and burrowed underneath a large four-poster bed that was tucked in the shadows beyond the scant light filtering through the doorway. The little girl had certainly overcome her fear of the dark, Haruhi noted. With flying colors. Even Haruhi was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the shadows here, a creeping sensation crawling up the back of her neck.

Haruhi wasn't afraid of the dark, but something about this room was setting off alarm bells in her head. There was a familiar scent in the air, one that raised the fine hairs on her arms into gooseflesh, the heady scent of spice and incense…

"Kirimi," Haruhi ventured cautiously, "we're not supposed to be in this room, are we?"

The little girl had emerged from beneath the fall of the bed spread, throwing back the hood of her little cloak the better to see the prize she'd recovered. It was, Haruhi saw as her eyes became more and more accustomed to the murky half-light, a high-quality notebook of some sort.

"It's okay," Kirimi assured her, "Onii-chama will never know."

Haruhi nearly fell over. _Mother in heaven… I'm in his bedroom_! Heat flooded her face, even as her rational mind told her that there was nothing to be frightened of or embarrassed about. It was a simple misunderstanding, of course. She couldn't have known where Kirimi was taking her. All she had to do was retrace her steps to the front door and find a nice big rock to hide under for a few days…

"Come here Gariben – I mean Onee-chan! This is where I got the idea for your doll. See?"

Kirimi had flipped through the notebook and when she thrust it towards Haruhi, it was open to a page covered with a detailed pencil sketch. Haruhi didn't mean to look – she was invading his privacy in the worst way! – but her eyes were drawn down reflexively. They widened as they alighted on the sketched portrait. It was her, done in profile, gazing off into some unknown with a serene look that people usually associated with inspiration or deep thoughts – but which Haruhi associated with grocery lists and homework. Whatever the portrait was thinking about, it was clearly meant to be Haruhi's likeness. She'd never known Nekozawa could draw so well.

In the margin beside the sketch, in the same hand as the note she'd received from Nekozawa-senpai, was written:

_Fujioka Haruhi:_

_Gentle radiance;_

_Candlelight; starlight; firefly;_

_Charming as the moon._

"You're Onii-chama's girlfriend!" Kirimi giggled, drawing her own conclusions in the absence of Haruhi's confirmation or denial, "Otherwise he wouldn't doodle pictures of you and call you 'beautiful' and sigh and sigh and sigh." She heaved a big sigh in demonstration – Haruhi didn't notice. Kirimi went on chattering anyway. "That's why I wanted my doll to look like you, Onee-chan! Because Onii-chama is a prince, so that makes you a princess!"

Haruhi wasn't really listening. All she heard was the words written on the notebook echoing in her head, and, for the first time in her life, looking at herself through someone else's eyes. To her astonishment she liked what she saw.

A painful and invigorating sensation, like stretching after a long sleep, seemed to bloom like a flower in her chest, along with a gentle heat that made her cheeks tingle and her head light. If this was love, she decided, it might not be so bad after all.

* * *

"…so I arranged for my driver to deliver the note to the Host Club mailbox. I thought…" If it were possible, Umehito's blush deepened – he seemed to become redder and redder with each passing plot point as he relayed his little adventure in the hallway with Fujioka, so that by now his face was an interesting shade of scarlet, "…I thought it would be…more romantic." Bereznoff buried his face in his stubby little hands in sympathetic embarrassment.

He paused, waiting for someone to lash out, to ridicule him, to affirm the derogatory thoughts that had been rattling around inside him all week long. When no one spoke, he risked glancing up from the floor he'd been examining intently ever since he began his tale.

He blinked in surprise at the looks of rapt interest that met him. Ohtori was scribbling madly into a nondescript notebook and Suoh was sniffling into a damp pile of tissues. There were little pink flowers floating around Haninozuka's head and Morinozuka had his chin propped on his palm in a pose of relaxed interest. The Hitachiin twins were sharing a bowl of popcorn, hunched forward and munching intensely as they waited for the next plot point in his narrative.

Somewhere in the distance, a cricket chirped.

"What happened next? What happened next?" Haninozuka gushed at last in order to fill the gaping silence.

"Yeah, I wanna know too! Haruhi ran out of the room after she got that note, but she came back later and never told us anything else about it," one of the twins expounded – Kaoru, Umehito thought; hearing their voices in the darkness had helped him differentiate between them the tiniest bit.

"It was Kyoya-senpai who figured out it was you that had sent the note," the other – Hikaru? – finished for his twin.

"A chimpanzee could have figured it out," Ohtori-kun commented dryly.

"Nonsense, Mother!" Suoh-kun rejoined, tunneling out from under the mountain of used tissues and favoring Ohtori-kun with a heroic pose, "It was a feat of deduction! After all, it was a matter between my precious daughter and my archnemesis, and even I was in the dark!"

"I wouldn't advertise that," Ohtori suggested. Suoh-kun was too caught up in his throes of drama to notice. Fortunately, he slipped on a banana peel instead and tumbled to the ground before he could really get his over active imagination in gear. ("Ne, Takashi, was that the chimpanzee that figured it out, then?" "Could be…")

"Er, so why did you try to kidnap me like this?" Umehito pondered, bemused.

"Well, we certainly couldn't allow you to see our faces!" Suoh scoffed, dusting himself off and settling himself back on the lounge as though nothing had happened. "If you knew who we were, you could put a dark curse on us!" He seemed curiously unconcerned that kidnapping was a felony, Umehito noted.

"Ah," Umehito acknowledged awkwardly, "Sorry to disappoint you, but I knew it was you all along."

Tamaki recoiled slightly, his eyes widening comically, then narrowing. "As expected from a dark wizard," he muttered, biting down thoughtfully on his thumbnail as he brooded, "It would take much more than a rope and a heat lamp to block such dangerous unnatural energies…"

"Er, no, it wasn't that…." Umehito attempted, but Suoh wasn't listening. The others shared a collective sweat drop and let the Host King delude himself.

"I…er…so you aren't angry with me?" Umehito ventured warily after a moment, unsure whether or not he was witnessing normal behavior and wondering whether or not to be alarmed.

"Oh, I wouldn't go that far," Ohtori responded, favoring him with a smile that could freeze molten lead, "Tamaki and the twins here are just so deep in denial that it will take them a few minutes to process their outrage. They'll try to kill you momentarily. Meanwhile, I suggest you finish your story. You know, while there's still time."

"Indeed!" Suoh replied in a too cheerful voice, "…I want to hear the rest! It's so touching, I can hardly stand it! So what happened after that?" he prodded, wide-eyed as a child waiting to hear the end of a bedtime story. The twins nodded frantically, displaying identical expressions of forced cheerfulness that bordered on creepy. Umehito realized with a growing sense of dread that perhaps Ohtori-kun wasn't kidding…

"What happened…?" Umehito parroted nervously, recalling the sight of Fujioka running towards him through the streaming sunlight, brow drawn down in a scowl. He sighed dejectedly. "She…was angry with me. For interfering with her life like that, I suppose. I didn't mean to impose. Just the opposite." In spite of himself, he felt his expression soften and become wistful, the way it always did when he was about to wax poetic about something. "She's so gentle, yet unyielding. She's serene and accepting, but stays strong in her convictions. And kind…so kind that I fooled myself into thinking that…that… and her eyes…I always feel like I'm drowning in her eyes, but there's no place else I'd rather be…" He trailed off, mortified, as he realized that the others were staring at him as though he'd grown a second head. "…or something like that…" he mumbled feebly. His face became a shade redder, for good measure, and he tried to hide it behind his blond locks, but was having an awkward time of it without his all-concealing hood.

Again he waited for ridicule, for scorn, for scathing laughter. None came. Instead, to Umehito's undying astonishment, a pair of hands clasped his free one – Bereznoff was still perched staunchly upon the other – in a startlingly familiar gesture. When his head shot up, he found himself staring into Suoh-kun's star-struck gaze.

"Such heart-felt words!" he practically sang as roses began spontaneously blooming throughout the room, "You truly see the depth of my precious daughter's soul!"

"We're not giving these back to you," the twins informed him, one holding his wig, the other his pilfered hood, "You're almost human when you're not wearing them."

"Eh?"

"Ne, Takashi?" Haninozuka interjected conversationally, in a voice loud enough to be heard by all, "Did Haru-chan seem upset to you when she got the note?"

Morinozuka's brow furrowed slightly with thought or concern – it was so hard to tell. "No," he answered finally.

"That's right," Kaoru – he guessed? – observed, tapping his lip with his index finger thoughtfully, "when Kyoya-senpai told her that her debt had been paid, I thought she'd sprout wings and fly off to heaven. I've never seen her look so delighted."

Umehito's head shot up for the trillionth time that day – _I'm definitely suing for whiplash_ – at the freshman's words. Fujioka had been happy? His gift had made her happy?

"Come to think of it," Hikaru – he assumed? – added, "even after she got that note, she didn't seem upset. Maybe a little sad though. Or maybe just distracted. She sighed a lot; has been all week long, come to think of it."

Sad but not upset? Distracted but not angry? The rusty pendulum in Umehito's chest, long stuck in the doubt position, began to shudder and loosen. Did he dare…did he dare to hope?

"She complained several times about the cosplay," Ohtori-kun interjected distractedly – he had long ago pulled his pineapple laptop from somewhere and was currently otherwise engaged – not bothering to look up from his work, "She never complains about dressing up when she's in a bad mood; she just glares a lot."

"Indeed, indeed," Suoh-kun nodded sagely and tried to look authoritative, "My darling Haruhi was certainly not angry. After all, who knows a girl better than her loving and devoted father? A father must be attuned to his child's every need, to comfort and become a guiding force in times of…" He went on, but by then no one was listening anymore.

"So are you sure she's angry with you?" the twin Umehito was almost certain was Hikaru asked, "What did she say that made you think so? Because believe me, Haruhi can be blunt as a pencil easer, even when she doesn't mean any harm."

"You're still just upset that Haruhi said you have a meaner air than I do," the other twin smirked wickedly.

"It's not meanness, its honesty," the first sniffed, "Like I said, you're the one putting on airs."

"So what did she say?" Haninozuka interrupted as the twins bared their teeth at one another.

"Erm…well…" Umehito fidgeted over his words. Oddly enough, the bulk of the tale had been easy to relate, spilling from his lips in a rush of honesty. But now that he was about to say it out loud, the fact that he'd run from Fujioka like a skittish fruit bat seemed incredibly cowardly and idiotic.

"Nekozawa-senpai…" Hikaru (?) intoned pleasantly.

"Finish the story…" Kaoru (?) rejoined sweetly.

The candles guttered ominously as identical shadows fell over their identical faces and their eyes began to glitter viciously.

"Before we forget to be patient and remember to lose our tempers!" they finished together. Umehito bit his lip to keep from squealing in terror and nodded frantically. His embarrassment would just have to take a back seat.

"The truth is, when I saw Fujioka coming towards me, I got scared and left before she could say anything to me…All day after I sent the money, I was terrified of what she would think, and then I was thinking all these terrible things she might say or do to me, and then I saw her running towards me with that quizzical look on her face and I just… I just…"

His steam ran out as he realized that the six host members had frozen in place to stare at him expressionlessly. Haninozuka's dancing flowers even fell out of the air and clattered against the floor like shattered glass. Another cricket chirped. Umehito reflexively scooted his chair back a few inches.

"Do you mean to say…"

"…you did something so…

"…so…"

"…so…"

"…so…sweet!"

"–selfless!"

"–_romantic!_..."

"…and then you just ran off with your tail between your legs?"

"Poor Haruhi!"

"Wah! How anticlimactic! Right, Takashi?"

"Ah."

"He's hopeless! Hopeless!"

"That was a horrible ending to the story!"

"Lets punish him!"

"Eh?!" Umehito blanched – how had they come back to this?

"Nekozawa-senpai," Ohtori interjected politely, his glacial smile gleaming dangerously as the Hitachiin twins started unknotting the ropes they'd tangled up in the earlier skirmish, "I think you should go home and reflect upon your actions and their possible…consequences…before these two get any creative ideas. I'm sure I don't need to remind you to keep Haruhi's gender a secret." As he spoke, Haninozuka and Morinozuka, as if bidden by some unspoken command, rose and started towards him. Umehito cringed, but all they did was lift him to his feet. Haninozuka, unusually stonefaced, tossed Umehito's cloak (taken from the twins while they were busy sorting out the ropes) over his head as Morinozuka ushered him unyieldingly towards the door.

"Have a pleasant afternoon," Shadow King continued in a voice so unnaturally friendly that it threatened metaphysical harm if crossed, "and please don't leave the country for the next few days. It would make tracking you down most inconvenient."

And with that, Umehito was unceremoniously deposited outside the door to the Third Chemistry Lab (with darkroom function), which was promptly slammed in his face. He wanted to protest (why was the Host Club kicking him out of the Black Magic Club President out of his own club room?) but he was still reeling from the overload of all that had just taken place. He needed to think about things, sort them out. He needed to think about the Host club and whether his passport was outdated (just in case) and whether it was really worth the trouble of suing for whiplash.

And he needed to think about Fujioka, and whether or not he was brave enough to believe she could possibly care about him.

* * *

After passing an abashed moment of conscience, Haruhi firmly told it to shut up and shamelessly examined the shelves of Nekozawa-senpai's room as Kirimi replaced her brother's pilfered notebook. Eclectic items of all sorts lined the walls, from draconic figurines to stuffed dolls cat dolls to strange, primitive-looking artifacts dripped in something Haruhi very much hoped was rust-red paint. Some were strange enough to make Haruhi raise an eyebrow, but mostly just enough to make her wonder how many pounds of rice or bushels of vegetables each one could buy, and then roll her eyes. At least she didn't need to feel any guilt over the expense of her debt – he could clearly afford it. Whatever these new feelings in her chest signified, rich bastards were rich bastards, no matter how you dressed them up.

As her eyes wandered over the gold encrusted figure of a bakeneko with what she suspected were real rubies for eyes, she wondered if she could really find anything in common with him – not because of his slightly disturbing metaphysical habits, but more because of his apparent ease with spending money. She had said they were alike, but she began to suspect there were more differences than she had first thought. They were from two different worlds, in various senses…

Yet each time the thought crept up into the back of her mind, she caught it with the memory of deeply blue eyes in the shadows, and the smell of spice clinging to black fabric, and knew that she didn't merely want to know him better in spite of all this strangeness, but _because _of it. He was… well, alluring, enticing, tempting even. Like books or sushi, but the hunger for him wasn't in her head or her stomach, it was spread out through her muscle fibers and knotted up in her chest, and it was made of a smoldering fire that warmed even as it ached and stole her breath. She wanted to get closer to him, and to know more about him. Maybe they were too different, but there was only one way to find out. Haruhi's cheeks pinked as the sensory memory of his lips made hers tingle in sympathy. As the creature of sensation leered at her from its lair in the back of her mind, Haruhi admitted to herself that she was really looking forward to finding out...

She was still riding the high of her memory when the door to the room rattled and clicked open, dousing her daydreams with dread like a bucket of cold water all through her system.

"O-Obochama!" Kuretake was in the midst of saying, her anxious tone freezing Haruhi's blood as she caught a glimpse of black fabric through the opening. "W-wouldn't you rather come d-downstairs, and take t-tea in the conservatory?"

Nekozawa-senpai – for that's who was opening the door, to his own room, in which his little sister and his underclassman had just been rummaging through his possessions and private thoughts – turned his head away from the open doorway to answer the maid.

Quick as a wink, Kirimi-chan tugged Haruhi to the floor behind the bed, just as Nekozawa finished murmuring his quiet response and entered the room. In unspoken agreement, the two females quietly scrambled under the bed, the dust ruffle falling back into place just in time for Haruhi to glimpse the soles of his house shoes treading into the space she'd just occupied. She swallowed her heart back down into her chest and tried to find the switch to reactivate her cognitive processes.

She shouldn't have hid, her rebooting rationality informed her with an air of lofty disappointment. She should have stood there when he opened the door and explained herself in a calm manner, apologized, and then spoken with him as she had last intended to do when she stood before the evilly laughing cat figures at the front gate.

Perhaps she could still... She grimaced at the thought. The moment for rational action had passed the moment she crawled under his bed like some creepy cliche of a peeper; even her perfectly logical explanation now strained credulity. Being found in his room with his sister was one thing, but there was absolutely no telling what he'd think if she crawled out from under his bed. Haruhi pursed her lips as she realized she cared what he thought of her rather more deeply than she used to.

So, as he moved about the room doing whatever it was he did in his own bedroom, panic and embarrassment went violently to war across the front of her brain, while the creature of sensation thankfully stood back and let her freak out in peace for a moment. How did she get herself into these situations! What in the world was she supposed to do now?

She glanced at Kirimi through the darkness, and the child returned her wide-eyed look and held up one finger to her little pink lips in the universal gesture of '_don't move, don't speak, don't even breathe and maybe he won't notice'. _It was as a good plan as any, considering the circumstances. As long as he decided to leave any time soon. Maybe he would go down for afternoon tea. Maybe he'd decide he wanted to do his homework in the ballroom. Perhaps he'd suddenly be spontaneously cured of his photophobia and decide to go for a walk in the garden. Haruhi decided to be optimistic.

True to form, this promptly backfired as Nekozawa climbed on to his bed. Haruhi let her forehead fall silently against the thick pile of the carpet.

Her heart began bouncing off the walls of her chest like a paddle ball as the springs creaked overhead. He shifted around, then settled with a clearly audible sigh. He was directly above her. Her cheeks flamed as, unhelpfully, the creature of sensation chose this moment to begin scampering along her spine, as though it might like to claw its way out of her skin, straight up through the stuffing and springs, to reach the boy beyond that called it like a siren.

The irony that the person she had come to demand answers from was directly overhead, and yet completely out of reach, was not lost on her. Haruhi grimaced in frustration as she realized that some small, contrary, psychotic part of her mind (probably the shady lair of the creature of sensation) wanted to crawl out from under the bed, and maybe even crawl on top of it and find out if her senpai shared her feelings - without using any words.

The thought only flitted through her head for about a tenth of a second before the rest of her mind sniped it out of the sky with the semi-automatic machine gun of sanity. But not before it managed to prick her with an unpleasant realization.

While the drawing and the gift and the _kiss _seemed to say he cared for her… he also kept avoiding her, turning away from her, running away from her. Just because he liked her didn't actually mean he wanted to be with her, did it? What if… now that she knew how she felt about him… he _didn't _feel the same way she did?

As if on cue, a voice overhead broke the silence, sending the paddle ball of Haruhi's heart ricocheting back into her throat as her fingers dug into the carpet.

"What am I going to do, Bereznoff?" Nekozawa murmured with a sigh. Haruhi frowned at the wistful tension in his voice and wondered what was troubling him. "Is she really not angry with me? Then what... no, she couldn't... could she? No, I don't know!" He sighed, frustration clear in his voice.

Again, as if on cue, Kirimi-chan slithered up beside her, and, pressed her little mouth close to Haruhi's ear (and raising the hairs on the back of Haruhi's neck – occult or not, surely they couldn't _actually _read her mind…), answered her unspoken worries.

"See, Onee-chan?" she whispered almost inaudibly. "Onii-chan sighs and sighs. He's in _love._"

The child tried to giggle, but Haruhi clapped a hand over her mouth before the sound could escape, blinking up at the box spring as though she could penetrate the wood and fabric if she squinted hard enough, and maybe flesh and blood while she was at it, and get inside Nekozawa's head.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when an instant later the bed shifted again, and Nekozawa's black-socked feet appeared on the floor beside her head once more. After a tense moment, when he didn't throw the dust ruffle up and shout 'Aha!', Haruhi let her muscles relax and bit her lip to keep from either sighing in relief or fainting. Her nerves couldn't take much more of this.

After a long moment there resounded the distinctive _crack-hisssss_ of a match being struck accompanied a gentle flare of warm brilliance that revealed Nekozawa kneeling across the room next to the altar, still in his school uniform, though without the jacket, and the top button of his shirt collar was undone. The match lit his face from below, playing strange shadow games with the pale contours of his face that somehow brought a new flush of pink to Haruhi's cheeks. The creature of sensation purred at the way the blaze glittered through his golden hair, and might have made her do something rash, if her willpower and her sense of self-preservation hadn't ganged up and corralled it with cattle prods. But she couldn't quite fault the beast its fascination – her rational mind was almost equally enthralled.

Here was the prince from the portrait, but surrounded by the possessions and trappings of the awkwardly sinister black-draped boy with the cat puppet. Here was Nekozawa, all parts integrated, unpretentious and uncovered, simply himself. Haruhi's blush deepened. She'd seen him without his cloak and wig before, but this was… different. So different that she felt almost as though she were somehow seeing him naked. The creature of sensation leapt to attention at _that_ idea, and Haruhi was so busy keeping her head from exploding that she nearly missed what he was doing.

Nekozawa lit a black candle on the altar, then lit two sticks of incense from the candle's flame. The scent reached Haruhi, and she recognized it as the spicy scent that always seemed to cling to him when she bumped into his chest, or was near enough to feel how surprisingly strong his arms were… her head swam and it occurred to her to worry that her cheeks my be giving off a red glow in the dark. She only just resisted clapping her hands over them, and went on watching the ritual, her interest grudgingly piqued. After all, this sort of thing was very much a part of Nekozawa-senpai's nature. She found that, though she still thought the occult was nothing but smoke and mirrors and a waste of time that could be better spent on chores or studying, inexplicably she wanted to understand it.

_Because its important to him, _it dawned on her. Her cheeks lit up like paper lamps. _Hormone-driven idiocy _she scolded herself. But her eyes remained fixed unerringly on his profile.

Next, he dipped one hand into a velvet bag hanging by the altar. From it he pulled a pinch of dried green herbs, and sprinkled them onto a round dish that waited at the base of the Bereznoff puppet's make-shift throne. Dusting the last bits of herb from his hands with a (_unnecessary_, Haruhi's cynicism deadpanned) flourish, he proceeded to reach under the altar and, from a concealed black mini-fridge (_damn rich bastards, _Haruhi rolled her eyes) produced a small glass pitcher of milk. With grave purpose, he tipped the pitcher and let a dribble of milk splash onto the dish with the herb before replacing it in the fridge. Then, so suddenly it caused both herself and Kirimi to startle, he threw his arms wide and his head back.

"Oh mighty Bereznoff!" he cried spectacularly (Haruhi fought valiantly to keep from face-palming) "Dark messenger, supreme feline, ancient patron of the Nekozawa line! I beseech you! Hear my plea and carry it to the black gods of the night! I... I…"

He trailed off, seeming suddenly to run out of steam as his fingers curled into loose fists and lowered to his sides. His head lowered too, so that his golden locks brushed down around his face, and Haruhi could barely see between the strands as the sapphires of his eyes were secreted under heavy lids. He sighed and when he spoke, it was with a quiet sincerity that put all the flash and fanfare of the ritual to shame.

"Please… Bereznoff… I just want her to love me… the way I love her…" he whispered, and his eyes closed the rest of the way.

Stunned, Haruhi was helpless as the creature of sensation sank its fangs into the middle of her chest, and that radiating ache glowed back to life, painful and wonderful, burning away the air in her lungs and leaving her breathless. Inadvertently, she sucked in a deep, shuddering, noisy-as-a-cannon-blast gasp.

Nekozawa tensed instantly, whipping his upper body around to glare warily around the darkened room.

"Who's there?" he demanded, brows drawn down, curled fists tightening with anxiety.

For a timeless, hanging moment, Haruhi thought her ghost was going to escape through her mouth as her hammering heart froze in her chest with an uncomfortable lurch. If he found her now, watching him perform a ritual to ask his gods to make her love him… if the embarrassment didn't kill her, she may well commit hara-kiri. (_Mother in heaven, help me, I'm turning into Tamaki-senpai…_)

Then time shivered, screeched and rumbled into motion again as the tiny girl beside her stirred, shot her a look that said 'I told you so' plain as day, then squirmed forward and burst out from under the dust ruffle. Haruhi cringed backwards as the black fabric fluttered back into place.

"Onii-chama! Surprise!" Kirimi giggled, throwing her arms up in delight.

"Kirimi-chan!" Nekozawa breathed, slumping with apparent relief before climbing to his feet. "Don't scare me like that when I am communing with the powers of the abyss! You know better than to play in here. What were you doing under there?"

"Waiting for Onii-chama!" she squealed happily, clapping her hands. Then she dashed forward and reached for the velvet bag of crushed herbs. With childish abandon, she pulled a heaping handful from the sack and flung it into the air so that it rained down on the two of them and the altar as she spun in the flurry, arms out like she was dancing in snow. "Dark Gods, please grant Onii-chama's happiness!" she cried dramatically, then giggled happily as she beamed up at her brother.

Nekozawa had his hands up, palms out, and was muttering monosyllables of protest, his expression torn evenly between abject adoration of the angelic picture she made amidst the satanic paraphernalia, and apoplectic horror as she made a mess of his altar tools and offerings. Finally he settled for snagging her hand, grinning a forced grin and sweat-dropping nervously as he tugged her towards the door.

"Kirimi-chan, lets go play in your playroom!" he shrilled, laughing nervously as he pulled open the door. "Sorry Berezonoff…" he muttered under his breath, and Haruhi imagined it must be a trick of the candlelight, but the puppets eyes seemed to gleam with a promise of retribution to come at a later date.

"Okay!" the child piped. As Nekozawa pulled her forward, Kirimi turned slightly and winked at the dust ruffle that concealed Haruhi (…_is that _really_ a child…?!_), then skipped after her brother. "I'll show you the new doll Kuretake helped me make, it's just like…" Then the door clicked shut and silence descended on the dark room.

For a long moment, Haruhi just lay there melting into the thick pile of the rug in a pool of relief. Really, _how_ did she get herself into these situations? …_I belong in the Host Club… _Pushing that alarming possibility to the back of her mind, she sighed as she crawled out from under the bed. She needed to get out while the getting was good. She wasn't about to tempt fate by wondering what else could possibly go wrong – she was well enough acquainted with the eccentricities of rich bastards (even one so endearing as Nekozawa-senpai) to know there were still plenty of ways she could find herself incarcerated and inconvenienced.

Nevertheless, she paused as she passed the altar, examining it with a sharp eye. It was just a bunch of candles and crystals, right? She pinched a few particles of the crushed herb between her fingers, sniffing it. She was amused to find that that it was catnip. So much for some great mysterious substance to unlock the mysteries of the universe. But still…

Before could think herself out of it, she grudgingly held out her hand and let the flakes flutter down into the little dish of milk before the cat puppet.

"Can't hurt," she muttered, then glanced at the doll. Her expression softened as his words replayed in her mind. "Please grant Nekozawa-senpai's happiness, Bereznoff."

Then, blushing at her own sentimentality and feeling like an idiot, she hurried quietly from the room and set about searching the labyrinthine corridors for a door, window, cat flap, anything that would lead her out of this opulent madhouse and back out into the open air where rationality and logic had at least a token foothold in the way people live their lives. She had all the answers she needed, now she just had to decide what to do with them.

She was in such a hurry that she did not see the way the candlelight flickered and seemed to flash in the cat puppet's eyes as the catnip soaked up the milk and began drifting to the bottom, the sincere offering seemingly swallowed up by Nekozawa's protector.

* * *

Kuretake watched from the window as, twenty minutes later, Fujioka finally found her way out through a side door, looking lost and slightly bewildered, and with a last glance backward filled with longing and exasperation, set off rapidly down the drive towards the gate.

Her eyes flashed dangerously as, with a devilish grin that only an otaku in the grip of _moe_ can imagine, she wordlessly picked up the phone and dialed. She glanced fondly down at little Kirimi-chan, who gazed back up at her an answering conspiratorial light as she caressed the contours of the Haruhi doll that she'd just shown her brother in the play room. (Obochama had stuttered rather unmanfully for a full thirty seconds before stalking off, face flaming, muttering darkly under his breath, something about padlocks and barrier spells.) The phone buzzed twice, and then clicked.

"Hello, Renge-kun?" Kuretake intoned sweetly. Then her sinister smile deepened as the flames of _moe_ lit in her eyes. Little Kirimi started laughing evilly and chafing her hands in anticipatory glee. "I've just been talking with Kirimi-chan. We've just had the most a _wonderful _idea…"

* * *

While creatures of sensation had languished and otaku had plotted, the Host Club had been brooding.

Once the door to the Third Chemistry Lab (with darkroom function) was closed and secured, Mori flipped the switch on the shutters to open them. Daylight poured in to reveal Hikaru and Kaoru sitting cross legged side by side on the floor, limbs tangled with what seemed like miles of unsuccessfully untangled rope, arms crossed and heads drooping as they fumed silently. Honey went to retrieve Usa-chan from the cabinet he'd left him in ("…to keep him safe from the Dark Wizard Magic Lightning Attack that Tama-chan told me about!" the senior had explained sagely) and Kyoya stowed his laptop. The five hosts turned as one to face their king, half expecting him to still be off in la-la land.

Instead, they found him gazing out the window, a contemplative look on his fair face.

"Well, Milord?" Hikaru demanded, scowling fiercely.

"What are we going to do about that interloping kiss-maniac?" Kaoru asked, narrowing his eyes in contempt.

Tamaki stood, but for once, he was silent, his hair falling over his eyes. A low current ran through the room, and the others sat up a little straighter and paid attention – this was the part where the Host King always unveiled his master plan, usually both demented and brilliant in equal parts. But Tamaki ignored them, walking with slow, measured strides to the window. Outside, on a high branch of one of the flourishing cherry blossom trees, sat a tiny sparrow. It cocked its head in his direction, staring at him for a long moment before, in a flicker of movement, it spread its little wings and flew away.

"Haruhi…" he murmured breathlessly, unshed tears swimming in his eyes. For once, Tamaki seemed to be utterly speechless.

The others, all disappointed hopes, turned away from the contemplative blond and began to brainstorm in hushed tones about the most effective way to ensure Nekozawa kept his mitts off their personal princess. Tamaki was only half listening as he watched the pink petals of the cherry blossoms fluttering towards the ground to be trampled under careless feet.

But suddenly, a flicker of movement on the horizon caught his eye. The sparrow had returned. In its little beak, oddly enough was a twig with a single, perfect cherry blossom clinging to the end. It alighted on the tree branch once more and, after a bit of fussing, tucked the twig into the nest it was building in the crook of the branch.

And just like that, Tamaki understood.

"Of course!"

Wheeling around, he struck a fantastic pose, pumping his fist in the air as roses bloomed around him once more. The others stopped talking to stare at the Tamaki's complete turn around with amazement.

"Wow, Milord, you got over that quickly!"

"We were sure you'd be a dead shell of yourself for at least a few more weeks."

"As expected of you two unscrupulous brothers! Evil-doers always underestimate the hero at the end! Mother, call your private police back and tell them not to banish Nekozawa-senpai from the country. I know now what we must do."

"Eh? Tama-chan sure thought fast! I bet it's a really good idea!"

Tamaki smirked, tossing his bangs with a quick flick of his wrist before he held up a single demonstrative finger.

"But of course," he replied, "it's just the thing! Think about it, my minions! What did we all believe would happen when Haruhi learned her debt was paid in full?"

There was a short pause during which the others tried to weigh whether or not this was a trick question. Finally, Hikaru replied: "We thought she'd leave the Host Club?"

"Correct!" Tamaki gushed, patting Hikaru affectionately on the head, "And what happened, in reality, when she received the news?"

Again, a pause, before Kaoru chimed in: "Well, she was very happy…"

"But…?" Tamaki prodded, waving his hands in a helpless sort of prompting motion. When both twins just stared at him, irritation beginning to buzz around their deadpan expressions, he rolled his eyes and turned to the others.

"But she didn't leave…" It was Kyoya that responded. His face was a mix of dawning comprehension and consternation. He suddenly understood what Tamaki was getting at, and maybe even agreed, but he clearly didn't know if he liked it.

"Sharp as ever, _mon ami_!" Tamaki praised, walking around behind the lounge to nuzzle Kyoya from behind and retreating before Kyoya could angle himself around to get a good swing in. "What then, does this tell us?"

There was an unusually solemn light of understanding on Honey-senpai's face as he answered, looking up at Mori-senpai for reassurance, then out the window at the sparrow building its nest. "That even if Haru-chan is set free, she'll still come back to us."

Mori-senpai merely produced a gentle smile and laid his hand on his cousin's shoulder in agreement. The twins blinked at the sight. ("He really is deep, isn't he Kaoru?" "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes…")

Tamaki smiled his overconfident smile, but for once, it was ever so slightly tempered with sadness.

"This Host Club exists to bring joy to women!" he declared, lifting his chin at the noble proclamation, "And what woman is more important than Haruhi?"

"So…what do we do, Milord?" the twins chorused.

Tamaki smirked. "We set her free, of course."

As the twins held up their hands in confusion, from under the floor there came a deep rumbling, as though somewhere in the bowels of the school, a high powered motor had been activated.

"_Oh ho ho ho ho ho ho! Oh ho ho ho ho ho ho!"_

Suddenly, the lab tables slid apart and the floor opened up to make room for a slowly spinning dais to rise into the room. Atop the dais stood a blond fanatic in a yellow dress, laughing like a kabuki noblewoman. As the dais ground to a halt, she struck a pose and grinned down her nose at the startled Host Club.

"My otaku senses were tingling!" Renge declared, skipping down the platform to stand in their midst, a secretive grin on her face. "I just received the most interesting phone call from Kuretake-san."

"Renge-kun, how…how do you know Nekozawa's household matron?" Tamaki wondered, with a sweatdrop.

"Eh? We met at a convention months ago. That woman has an unhealthy obsession with shoujo manga."

"Are you really in a position to say that?" the twins asked her, cocking their eyebrows and crossing their arms.

"Never mind that!" Renge dismissed. "I have only moments ago received some very interesting information from Kuretake-san and I have just the thing to help you in your plight! Any woman forced to shoulder the burden alongside men, but especially Haruhi-kun, definitely deserves to find happiness!"

"What a devoted manager, how considerate and thoughtful and…"

"…"

"**WHAT?**"

The entire Host Club (including Mori and Kyoya, hard as it is to believe) face planted in shock.

"You…Renge-kun, you know that Haruhi's a girl?" a flabbergasted Hikaru blurted out.

"How…" Tamaki spluttered, "…how…HOW?"

"And when?" Kaoru demanded as Hikaru reached down to pull him up off the floor.

"Oh, I've known for a while. It's really rather apparent when you think about it. I mean, look at her! But don't worry, I haven't enlightened any of your customers, though I'm sure a few have figured it out by now. If they can't see it for themselves, they're obviously not ready to take such a step."

"Renge-kun, I thought you liked Haruhi," Kyoya intoned, dusting himself off, adjusting his tie and trying to gather up the shards of his shattered dignity, "yet you don't seem to be disappointed that she's female."

"Well, of course I do," Renge snickered conspiratorially, hunching over slightly as flames of _moe_ lit her eyes at the thought of the natural rookie host, "After all, Haruhi-kun is Haruhi-kun, even if he's really a she…"

Kyoya managed to restrain himself from hitting the floor again, but the others weren't so lucky. Once they had all picked themselves up, sat themselves down and distributed ice packs for the knots on their heads, they returned to the matter at hand.

"Very well, Renge-kun," Tamaki resumed, scooching slightly away from where Renge sat admiring Haruhi's Host Club photo collection magazine with stars in her eyes, "Clearly we've underestimated you… in various ways. What is it you'd like to contribute to the situation?"

Renge tucked away the magazine and faced the group once more.

"You want to bring happiness to Haruhi-kun! Well, after speaking with Kuretake-san, I have just the thing."

"What's that?" the twins asked in unison, genuinely curious.

A knowing smile alighted on Renge's mouth.

"What else? A cosplay, of course!"

* * *

End Chapter 4

* * *

**Note: ***drops rusty pen and glares critically at the writing* Hopefully worth the wait in some small way? Hmm, what could be awaiting our heroes in the epic conclusion? Remember, reviews are the carrot, and I'm the donkey, so you know what to do to find out sooner! ;) Thanks for reading!


	5. Beautiful

**Disclaimer: **Ouran High School Host Club, its plot and characters, belong to Hatori Bisco. The song lyrics belong to HIM. Anything else is mine, so please ask before borrowing**.**

** Note**: Okay, final chapter! Hah, and you were worried! Thank you SO much to everyone who had read, and twice as much to those who have reviewed, you have no idea how much it means! Please enjoy this final installment!

**Chapter 3/3 = 1**

**Beautiful****  
**

_Just one kiss and I'm alive  
One kiss and I'm ready to die  
Cause you're so beautiful…  
-H.I.M._

In spite of all her hard won insight, four days had passed and not one of Haruhi's shiny new convictions towards Nekozawa had yet born fruit. The day after her abduction by a pre-schooler and daring escape from the Nekozawa estate, her responsibilities had seemed to snowball down on top of her all at once. For the rest of the week she remained repentantly busy making up for her recent distractions, catching up on school work she had missed while her mind had been wandering in class, and a housework she had been neglecting while it had continued to wander at home.

Even so, an unguarded moment or two found her staring thoughtfully into the distance, and it was not grocery lists that filled her mind in those moments, but candlelight in golden hair and the pungent spice of incense and fervent whispers in the darkness. Once or twice she even let her eyes wander to the shadowiest corners of her surroundings, even though her unrealistic hopes of catching a flutter of black fabric or a glimpse of blue eyes shining cat-like in the dark were dashed every time. Whenever this happened, she would shake herself and shove those thoughts down into the backroom of her brain where she'd kenneled the creature of sensation, but not without a twinge of regret at the loss. It had been less than a week, but there was no denying that she missed Nekozawa-senpai. It made little sense, since she'd barely been able to near him to begin with, but there was no denying it.

As an added bonus, just in case she hadn't accumulated enough trouble of her own making, both Tamaki and her father seemed to have launched separate yet synchronous campaigns to break her spirit through puppy-dog-eye sieges and spontaneous hug attacks. The least little thing she did could trigger a landmine of melodramatic tears and at any given moment she might be tackled to the ground or into a wall with a "Oh my precious daughter is growing into a fine woman!" or "Even after you don your white veil, you must never forget your loving father!" (Who said what? It couldn't matter less – the two of them seemed to have hired the same script writer for the non-stop stage drama that they called life.)

By Monday morning, Haruhi was exhausted and thoroughly exasperated. Yet in spite of it all, she found herself reluctantly grateful to her two 'fathers', for they had, through constant hammering, all but beaten her back into her apathetic equilibrium. What good had over-thinking gotten her, really? Nothing but a headache and a lot of extra work. She knew where she stood, and she was relatively certain she knew where Nekozawa stood. Now it was just a question of doing something about it.

Just _what_ she should do about it was another patch of thorns to untangle; she had no experience at all in these matters, and after recent events, the very idea of asking anyone at Ouran or at home for advice gave her ominous chills. But rather than fall to fuming and fussing and scheming (and proving she _belonged_ in the Host Club – an idea she refused to face in spite of the still wonderful and unbelievable fact that she was now _choosing_ it) she had determined that the best course was to simply wait and see what would happen. She would go with the flow.

It was in this newly restored Zen state of mind that she glimpsed from the corner of her eye a certain cursed cat puppet lying crumpled on the pavement. Her mouth tugged upward at the corners. So far, her lack of plan was a working perfectly.

* * *

Umehito, on the other hand, far from calm and collected, was in a state of near-meltdown as he lurked manically from column to column through the peripheries of the school corridors, searching for the missing Bereznoff.

He'd spent his four Fujioka-less days deliberating over the insights he'd gleaned from the hosts, and weighing the odds of rejection against the near debilitating ache for her that had taken up residence in his chest and would not abate. As if that weren't enough, he had to find time to fret over the strange looks he kept getting from the members of the Host Club, hostile glares or knowing smiles, and whispering, always whispering behind his back.

If he'd thought to escape the ominous murmuring and askance glances once home on Friday afternoon, he'd been both disappointed and disturbed to find himself subjected to more of the same. Ever since Kirimi found his journal and commissioned that remarkable little figurine of Fujioka - a beguiling gothic pixie that enchanted him out of even his supreme irritation that he apparently had zero privacy even in his own bedroom – the staff had been drifting around him, tittering and scattering like oversized rats whenever he whipped around to scowl at them.

To crown his troubles, he had not encountered Fujioka even once since his chat/hostage experience with the Host Club, not even long enough to have her take one look at him and bolt in the opposite direction. The acute loneliness of her absence weighed on him. As the hours ticked by, the richness and depth of the immaculate darkness Umehito surrounded himself with had begun to flatten and lose its wonder. The walls had seemed to tower and lean in over him wherever he went. His shoulders were heavy and his chest ached hollowly. He was tempted believe he was being haunted by a ghost with a grudge, but deep down, he knew it wasn't anything so interesting or easily remedied. He just missed her.

The Hosts had said she wasn't angry with him. They said she'd been pleased with his gift. A warm well of emotion bubbled up in his chest at the thought, and it boded well if true, but a cold knot buried at the bottom of his heart still leeched a venomous uncertainty into his veins, and it coursed through him almost brutally as the days passed. That freezing point of fear and doubt, standing in stark but unwavering counterpoint to every other instinct that drove him, whispered to him that maybe it was better if he never found out how she felt. That way he could still dream…

He felt sure he could find the answer if he could just see her again. After all, how else was he supposed to figure out what she was thinking? He'd already tried scrying, divination and even a long shot at psychometry with a pencil eraser Ohtori-kun had sold him at an outrageous price, but his third eye remained solidly clouded and the future firmly shrouded in mystery. Surely this was Bereznoff's doing, a well deserved denial of favor after the ill-use the cursed cat had been subjected to recently (though curiously, Bereznoff's aura of malevolent wrath had inexplicably abated ever since he had returned to clean up the mess Kirimi had made of his altar.)

By Monday morning he was so paranoid, distracted and despondent that, as he sat in the darkest corner of the classroom radiating a portentous miasma of gloom and glaring almost defiantly into the conflagration of the shining creatures laughing and talking all around him, he didn't even realize at first that Bereznoff had abandoned him in body as well as in spirit. Then Haninozuka, his cloud of little pink flowers wilting in the sinister fog of Umehito's harried despondency, asked him if he was lonely because his cat had stayed home today. Umehito had nearly jumped out of his skin when he looked down and found his hand bare. Thanking Haninozuka with a Black Magic coupon for a free jinx with the purchase of two curses, (the smaller boy had grinned with a little too much force and shuffled backwards with a slightly monotone giggle – it warmed Umehito's heart to see his classmate clearly so well pleased with his gift that he was speechless), he leapt out of his seat with enough momentum to send the wilted cloud of flowers splattering all over the floor, walls, and Morinozuka, and scurried out to find his fallen icon.

It was in this frantic state that he at last stumbled upon the object of his desire and constant rumination, as she shifted her school bag higher on her shoulder and crouched to pick up Bereznoff, where he lay waiting on the walk way. Umehito nearly wept with relief – not only at finding his cat doll, but because clearly Bereznoff was not angry with him. Just the opposite, he must be in an extremely benevolent mood - he had led Umehito to where he most wanted to be. The serendipity was too marked to be mere coincidence.

Just as Umehito was about to embarrass himself drastically by rushing tearfully up to reclaim his lost property, Fujioka's face turned ever so slightly, and the morning light lost itself in her eyes, shimmering there as she smiled gently down at the cursed cat. Radiant. Umehito froze midstride, overwhelmed, and instinctively pulled his outstretched hand back towards his chest as though fearing to be burned.

But… it was Fujioka.

In spite of all that had changed between them in the past days, Fujioka had never burned him like others did. She was the one who warmed him…_When did I forget that?_

Somehow the depth of doubt and dread he had endured all this time suddenly seemed vaguely ridiculous. So, even as that cold place in his chest told him that he was flying into an electric bug zapper, Umehito squared his shoulders (though he kept his head bent – it was a bright day, after all) and crept forward into the light.

At the whispering of his cloak on the pavement, Fujioka glanced up from her placid examination of Bereznoff's features and her fathomless eyes locked upon him. They widened with recognition and her lips parted ever so slightly – just enough to draw his attention to them. Umehito felt her gaze like a physical presence washing over him, caressing his limbs, turning his nerves into fuses and sending sparks racing through his body, up his neck to explode a deep stain of crimson through his cheeks. What was she thinking with such a look on her face? The forgotten pendulum in his chest, rusted solidly in the realm of doubt for so long that it was dusted in cobwebs, rattled desperately. For a long, torturous moment, Umehito was sure she would startle and run once more. He braced himself for the wave of cold disappointment and longing...

Then she smiled. It was the same gentle, shining smile that always scattered stars under his skin, and if it was tinged with an uncharacteristic shyness, it only added to her magnetism. Umehito's breath shuddered out between parted lips; he was almost in pain from the bliss of her mere acknowledgment, as the pesky pendulum jerked and scraped its way loose and started to descend. He clenched his fists tightly inside the folds of his cloak to keep them from doing something rash and unforgivable without his permission, like maybe wrapping around her arms and pulling her close, into the confines of his all concealing cloak, into a world for just the two of them, shielded from light and prying eyes, where he could…

Umehito revisited that old familiar idea of fainting as she took a step towards him and jolted him out of what had promised to be a most inconveniently delightful fantasy so forcefully that he almost tripped over his cloak (quite a feat, since he was standing still).

"Ohayo, senpai," Fujioka greeted him, quiet but deliberate.

"O-Ohayo, Fujioka-k-kun…-san… er... um…" Umehito suddenly wished he was more turtle than moth, because he was experiencing a distinctive urge to pull his head down between his shoulders into his body cavity and hide while his tongue tied her name in a horrible, awkward knot.

"Why don't you just call me, 'Haruhi'," she suggested, saving him, instantly soothing his embarrassment, replacing it with amazement and washing him with a bright flush of pleasure, all with one small sentence.

He watched in awe as she glanced down, her fingers running in an absent, nervous motion over one of Bereznoff's paws (he had never envied the cursed cat more) and a faint tinge of pink brightened her cheeks prettily. Umehito felt his eyelids grow heavy at the nearly hypnotic sight. How had he ever mistaken her for a boy? She was resplendent. A pleasant hum of tension took up residence at the base of his skull, spreading through his shoulders, but settling like a mantle rather than a yoke. Fujioka – _Haruhi _he corrected himself wonderingly_ - _had him spellbound as surely as the craftiest sorceress, and all without a single drop of magic. The moth inside him strained towards her gentle glow.

"Th… Then, please call me… Ume…hito…" The sentence fizzled at the end, but he got it out just in time for both of them to stand there staring at the ground between them in awkward silence that hummed with a pleasant electrical anxiety.

"So… then… I was wondering…" Fujioka – no, _Haruhi_ (blush) lifted her head suddenly, apprehension snapping in her expression as she shifted from foot to foot and flicked her gaze too and fro, "wondering… um… how was your weekend?"

She grimaced instantly at her own words and ducked her head again; Umehito had the distinct impression she had meant to say something else.

"Interminable," he answered honestly and without hesitation, startling himself. His mouth was moving without his permission. But it was only the truth, and now that she was in front of him, it was so strikingly clear exactly why. The cold, hollow ache was gone, driven out and filled up with her nearness. In spite of his jangling nerves, all he wanted to be even closer. "I think I was waiting for…"

Her head rose in curiosity, and it brought her face to into line with his as he loomed over her, though he had no memory of having moved closer to her. In his mind the moth fluttered furiously shouting warnings – _You're at school! She's dressed like a boy! You'll just cause her trouble! You haven't even appeased the cat gods yet! Bereznoff's wrath will be terrible! _None of it mattered, at least, not enough to stop him, and desire flowed over reason like a rising river, frothing and eddying, and then splashing into a uniform stillness with the singular, driving purpose of a deep, rushing torrent.

Their eyes locked and her breath caught audibly at whatever she saw there. The voice of censure faded to a buzz of background noise, so unimportant compared to what she made him feel just with the force of her undivided focus. Her eyelids fluttered as her gaze darted to his mouth and back, and that infinitesimal motion, like the flicker of a flame, was all it took to burn away his last shred of sense. Fire and water crashed together into a billowing haze of steam that swirled and misted the world around him into unreality. All there was, was sensation, and her.

Just like the last time, her eyes grew larger and deeper as the shadow of his hood fell over her face, but instead of wide and shocked, they grew lidded, and her face slowly lifted towards his, chin tilted up, neck extended as though she were straining to close the distance between them. As though she too could feel this inexorable pull, this force of nature, like gravity pulling a comet into a black hole, slowly pushing aside the interloping daylight that separated them, closer, until not even the embracing darkness was welcome between their lips…

There was a sudden _whoosh!, _a flash of red, a startling_ eep! _and Umehito's eyelids flew open (when had they closed…?) to find he was standing on the sunlit pavement, Bereznoff in one hand, a crisp white envelope in the other, and no one else in sight. He blinked, then blinked again, shook his head, and worried for about 2.5 seconds that maybe he'd dreamed the whole thing…

"Hikaru! Kaoru! Put me down! This instant!" Fujioka – _Haruhi _– shouted from somewhere behind him. He whirled in place, rigid and still blinking owlishly from the shock and the loss of her nearness, to see two red-headed demons literally carrying her off towards the school.

"Denied!" they replied in unison.

"The bell is about to ring," said the one that had her thrown over his shoulder at the hip.

"We wouldn't want our dear _male _friend Haruhi to be late for class because _he_ was being molested by a kiss-maniac in front of the school," the other concurred dryly as he jostled her upper body higher on his shoulder, leaving her arms to hang down his back. She shot the back of his head a dirty look. "You have to wait until your fairy god-father turns you into a princess…" he finished esoterically, managing to sound sullen and mischievous all at once.

If more was said, Umehito didn't hear it as they pushed their way through the front doors. He had one last glimpse of Haruhi's eyes, smoldering with a barely banked heat cut with a dash of frustration. They both unnerved and excited him as they flashed in his direction one last time. Then he was alone in the sunlight. Slowly coming back to himself after what he was beginning to believe may have been an out-of-body experience, he cringed into the shade of an obliging tree and righted Bereznoff on his hand. Then he glanced down at the envelope.

Numbed and frustrated from the sudden turn of events, distantly curious, but mostly lacking for anything more productive to do while he continued to recollect his scattered wits, he cautiously opened it.

_You are cordially invited to…_

Umehito scanned the page with growing confusion, but before he could form even the most rudimentary opinion on the situation, the clang of the class bell sent a shock through him and he tucked the paper safely inside his cloak as he raced for his classroom.

"Bereznoff, I can't tell if you're blessing me or cursing me…" he muttered, glancing at the cat, his heart and head spinning as his brain converted the encounter from an experience into a memory; Bereznoff cocked his feline head and glanced shiftily away. Umehito smirked darkly, and the hollow of his chest tingled almost painfully at the memory of the way she had moved to meet him in the shadow of his cloak... "… but whichever it is, please keep it up."

* * *

Haruhi made a monumental effort to pay attention in class, she really did. But though her eyes were focused on the blackboard, the geometric algorithms all blurred together and the teacher's voice droned around her head like a fly, and was just as easily swatted aside by the frustrated creature of sensation. It was no use. All her hours of hard work and mental preparation, shattered. What was she getting herself into?

She was irritated with the twins of course, for their high-handed man-handling of her person. But then, not only was she all too used to it by now, on another level she was actually grateful to them. What was she thinking, leaning in to kiss her upperclassman in full view of the school and anyone who happened to look out a window?

_I was going with the flow, right? _ She barely restrained herself from disrupting class with an undignified snort at that thought. There was going with the flow, and then there was drowning (albeit drowning happily) in it. The simple truth was that she hadn't been thinking at all. It was risky and thoughtless. But looking back, she couldn't see how it could have been different, for there was nothing simple about this unquenched craving he had woken in her. Indeed, it seemed to complicate everything.

She had been irrationally proud of herself for standing her ground when Nekozawa-senpai had detached himself from the shadows like a particularly large blob of ink dripping onto the bright surface of the walkway. In spite of her prior resolution to face him and let events take their course, it had been a near thing, as a completely irrational instinct that ran counter to all her determination and desires urged her to put several miles between herself and this strange boy that so thoroughly confused and enthralled her.

But the moment he'd drawn near her, that had all changed without warning.

It must have been the sight of his face, she realized upon reflection, so often hidden from view, so close and for once so unguarded; that intense look of longing in his eyes focused directly on her, resonating with the hunger pangs that she'd fended off all weekend long. The straining strings that pulled at her to run had rebounded like a slingshot, as every last semblance of self-control and sagacity had flown straight out the front gate and halfway to Hokkaido. All that had been left in its place was sensation, or rather the want of it.

She'd been powerless against the mystery of his presence as it engulfed her and lifted her away from herself, a leaf torn from its mooring branch to be swept skyward by the swelling currents of the wind. All that worry over thoughts and emotions, yet she had forgotten how incredible it had felt to be _kissed_, and how enticing the prospect of being kissed again was shaping up to be.

It was now hours later, and the creature of sensation was still roaming restlessly under her skin, craving something she couldn't even fully define, making her fingers clench into fists and her teeth worry at her bottom lip. This was going to do terrible damage to her test scores, it was already obvious. Try as she might to memorize the names of Sengoku warlords and conjugate verbs in French, all she could really think about was the moment she could escape to find her awkward, black-clad blue-eyed moth-boy, and find out what exactly it was she was missing.

As expected, love certainly could be inconvenient, irrational and irritating. So tiresome! Problematic! Awkward!

A smile ghosted over her face. How strange that she could not bring herself to wish it gone…

Finally, mercifully, the last bell rang. Haruhi had her things packed in record time and was marching for the door with an almost grim determination, when two arms belonging to two redheaded jackals hooked under hers, one on each side, and arrested her movement. She very nearly growled at the identical expressions of cynical mischief gracing the charming faces of her captors. This routine was getting old fast.

"Now Haruhi," Kaoru began as they lifted her bodily once again, this time carrying her with one arm each under her armpits so that she dangled between them like a child. "We understand your frustration…"

"…and we don't like it any more than you do," Hikaru went on, and there was a grudging edge to his voice that said he really didn't much like whatever it was they were talking about.

"… but Milord has spoken," Kaoru finished, shooting his brother a look, to which Hikaru sighed and rolled his eyes, but said nothing. "And in spite of everything, he's probably right…"

"What are you talking about?" Haruhi demanded, her words snappish, but her body already sagging with practiced resignation as they hauled her up the stairs towards the Third Music Room and whatever insanity awaited her this time.

"All in good time," Hikaru pronounced sullenly.

"Good things come to those who wait," Kaoru elaborated unhelpfully, winking subtly at her as they pushed open the door open.

At last Haruhi found herself set upon her own two feet, whirled around and was met with the surprise that had been laid out for her by the Host Club.

Her mouth dropped open. How did they… no, no, she was now far beyond underestimating the lengths to which rich bastards with a questionable grip on reality would go… crazy rich bastards who were so thoughtful and oddly selfless in the strangest ways, until it became impossible for her to stay angry with them…

"Haru-chan! Haru-chan!" Hunny trilled. "Do you like it?" Mori stood over his shoulder with a small smile on his face, and said nothing.

"Ne, Hikaru, do you think she's going to put up a fight?"

"You were right, Kaoru, we should have just handed her over to the otaku."

"Be grateful, Haruhi," Kyoya added coolly. "Renge wanted to use chloroform."

"And she mentioned something about dressing your unconscious body," Hikaru interjected.

"And then locking you in a dark closet until everything was ready," Kaoru finished.

"I found a shock collar and a gimp mask in her school bag!" Hunny interjected enthusiastically. Mori silently lifted one hand to display the evidence, complete with a little padlock and remote control.

The deadpan pall that darkened Haruhi's expression was due in equal parts to Renge's escalating tendencies, and to the fact that she wasn't the least bit shocked by them anymore.

"Renge is a remarkable person. In various ways."

But even this couldn't entirely dampen her growing excitement…

"Don't bother trying to resist," Renge appeared on cue beside Haruhi, apparently from thin air, to leer lasciviously between Haruhi and the surprise. "It's already arranged, so you might as well abandon all hope and submit to…"

"I'll do it," Haruhi interrupted. As the others gaped at her in open astonishment, she reached out and pinched a swath of fabric between her fingers, testing the sensation of it. She glanced at them, and smiled with an uncharacteristic mixture of smugness and shyness.

Kyoya cleared his throat. "Well that's one battle won." His pen paused over his ledger and flicked nonchalantly at the far end of the room. (The curtains there fluttered inconspicuously as Tachibana's minions – on reserve just in case - acknowledged the signal to stand down and silently slipped out the back way.) "But are you sure you're okay with this, Haruhi? People are sure to talk. All else aside, your designator demographic is sure to be affected."

Haruhi looked away, weighing his words as the fabric trailed through her fingers.

"You're right. I don't know what will happen," Haruhi replied soberly. "But I think its time to find out. About many things…"

Kyoya met her eyes levelly for a long moment, before he sighed and turned towards the window.

"And you, Tamaki?" For the first time Haruhi noticed the Host King standing unusually still with his back to the room, gazing out the window. "Are you really alright with this?"

"Kyoya-senpai is being awfully thoughtful," Kaoru commented inquisitively. "Is it going to rain tomorrow?"

"Don't be absurd," Kyoya snapped, adjusting his glasses. "If Tamaki comes back to his senses and falls to pieces, who do you think will be left shoveling the tear-soaked remains into the garbage can?"

"Ah. That's more like it."

"Well, Tamaki?"

After a long moment, Tamaki sighed long-sufferingly and let his chin fall against his chest.

"There are but two lasting gifts we can give our children," he intoned solemnly, tilting his head back so that the sunlight lit up his hair like a halo. "The first is roots – the last is wings."

"Oooh… Tama-chan is really deep, ne Takashi?"

"Ah."

"There's no way Milord came up with that on his own."

"Tamaki, just answer a question simply for once, or I won't be responsible for my actions."

With a flourish of melodrama, Tamaki whirled, striking a heroic pose as the sunlight shone around him like a halo. Haruhi wondered inwardly how long it had taken him to find that exact spot in front of the window, or if perhaps these things just happened randomly around him, and what the planet Earth might be like if he were to use that power to some useful purpose…

"As Haruhi's adoring father," Tamaki continued, stepping forward, arm extended as he delivered his prose, "I have striven to give you the strongest and most well-nourished of roots, educating you in the ways of the world and lovingly guiding you down the path of…"

"Oh, it's a quote from an American journalist from fifty years ago," Renge announced where she bent over her limited edition Ukidoki Memorial signature laptop, Hikaru and Kaoru hovering over her shoulder and scanning the screen.

"I knew Milord didn't come up with that on his own."

"Ne, Takashi, should I eat strawberry cake or chocolate cake, today?"

"Hello, Tachibana? I need you back up here. Bring rope."

"Strawberry cake has more vitamins, Mitsukuni."

"Ooo-kaaay!"

"…and now that your roots have grown deeps and strong…"

Tamaki, eyes closed in the throes of enthusiasm, arms extended, oblivious to his lack of audience, glided to a halt in front of Haruhi, who was peered up at him with a deadpan expression. Then abruptly he leaned down and cocked his head to one side, and his whole demeanor changing as he smile a sweet, slightly sad smile and looked her in the eye, direct and sincere…

"…take wing, Haruhi. But remember to come back to us, ne?"

Haruhi found herself blushing without knowing why. The others had stopped their various activities and turned to the pair in the middle of the room. They each wore their own version of the same wistful, warm expression.

Haruhi blinked around the suddenly hushed room at the eclectic mix of rich bastards that had inexplicably become her friends. Grudgingly, she decided that it wouldn't be so bad if this was where she belonged. As so often of late, this decision was hand-crafted to furnish her with the illusion that she had some kind of grip on her strange, crazy and never-dull life, as she reached it just about three seconds after she felt an answering smile gently settling over her face, and had already given the only possible response.

"Okay."

* * *

Umehito acknowledged two pertinent facts as he fidgeted fitfully outside the door the Third Music Room, both hands worrying at the edges of the curious invitation.

The first was that this situation had 'trap' written all over it in ten-meter tall flashing neon lights.

The second was that, as _Haruhi_ (even if she had given him permission to call her by name, he could barely even manage it in his head without blushing) was likely just beyond, he did not care.

After their so-very-rudely interrupted conversation earlier, Umehito had all but ripped that damnable swinging pendulum of hope and despair right off its hinges. While that small, cold part of him still quailed in terror of her rejection, a much larger part of him was nearly beyond caring as long as he could see her again. It had thoroughly bullied that smaller voice into submission. He was so driven to distraction by that unfulfilled promise implied by her upturned lips that now, hours of daydreaming later, all insecurities and humiliation seemed to pale in comparison to the prospect of closing that distance once more. If he had to walk a labyrinth of dangerous creatures of light to get to her, so be it.

Or he'd thought so right up until he'd found himself standing before these doors.

He had bravely left Bereznoff in the care of the Black Magic Club members, who had cheered him on and promised to offer sacrifices to the cursed doll to bring him good luck in his foray into the unknown. If he was going to do this, he'd decided that he needed to do it on his own (and the more he daydreamed, the more having two hands free seemed like an incredibly good idea). Nevertheless, standing before the gates of what had equal chance of turning out to be heaven or hell, Umehito was craving some divine protection.

Stalling as he willed his hammering heart to calm, he re-read the curious missive (which turned out to be one among many such invitations he'd spotted circulating amongst the female population throughout the day) that had brought him here..

_You are cordially invited to:_  
_Ouran High School Host Club_  
_'Dark Night of the Soul'_  
_Bite the forbidden fruit if you dare_  
_Step into the shadows_  
_To tempt these dark souls with your pure and innocent light_  
_And be tempted with your darkest desires_

It did sound like his kind of party, but the Host Club had never invited him to an event before. And if it wasn't a trap, then in light of the theme, why not invite the entire Black Magic Club? None of the others had gotten an invitation… Perhaps giving the invitation to the club president was meant to include everyone? Umehito bit on his thumbnail apprehensively, an unpleasant habit that Bereznoff usually protected him from, as he remembered the pseudo-interrogation of the previous week, and the hair-raising way the Host Club's eyes had been following him ever since. No, the most likely explanation was still a trap, and it didn't seem wise to get caught. Once again that flitting spot of cold lanced through his heart, telling him to quit gambling against impossible odds and walk away while he still had a shred of dignity. Yet the thought of moving away from Haruhi caused him more pain than he knew what to do with.

He sighed in frustration. What kind of theme was this for that flashy group anyway? That shining world, draped in shadows? It was a ridiculous notion. Umehito shook his head as he tried to picture it and failed.

But there was one way to see what such a dichotomy would look like. He had to admit that he was curious…

Haruhi's fathomless brown eyes and soft pink lips swarmed unbidden to the front of his mind, along with the way she smiled, the way she spoke, the way she felt pinning him to the wall of the stairwell with her arms wrapped around him...

"For her, then..."

Swallowing his pounding heart back down his throat, he reached out and pushed the doors open.

Instead of the customary burst of radiance, the doors opened with a gust of some darkly fragrant spice and a fluttering of black rose petals, to reveal a gaping rectangle if inky black darkness. From within came a disembodied greeting, at once foreboding and enticing…

"_Irasshaimase_…"

Déjà vu gripped Umehito just in time for him to mutter "I knew it," and sigh in defeat, as arms shot out of the darkness and hauled him in. He was blind for a long moment, and then alarmingly he was being manhandled out of his cloak. "Eh? Eh? Eh?!" The darkness spun dizzyingly and before Umehito knew what was happening, he spun and stumbled through a heavy black curtain and into another world.

The room was dark, and softly throbbing ambient music made the dimness vibrate and thicken until it was almost alive. The windows covered with heavy black curtains like the one through which Umehito had been unceremoniously thrust, and lit only by candelabra. They cast warm blobs of light, islands of gentle luminescence in a sea of liquid shadows. At seemingly random intervals, more black curtains had been hung throughout the room to form something like a maze of clinging fabric, but they were transparent, some gauzy, others of rose-patterned lace, still others like sheer netting, so that the air itself seemed tangible and each little pool of light seemed secluded and remote, but could be peeked in upon, lending an illicit feel of the forbidden to every innocuous word and action. Umehito savored an unbidden shiver of ecstasy at the quality of the atmosphere. The room was almost sinfully decadent. Who could have guessed the Host Club had this in them?

Through the fog of fabric, each illuminated area showed Umehito clusters of blushing, giggling girls, all dressed alike in simple white dresses – like virgin sacrifices, Umehito mused with nearly malevolently delight. Amidst each cluster of ladies were members of the Host Club as he had never seen them before: decked in black clothing of leather, nylon and velvet, silver jewelry, eyes ringed with black liner, fingers tipped with black nail polish.

Haninozuka was barely recognizable as himself, all in black, and while his shirt sported a skull with little hearts for eyes, he had adopted a dark, haughty expression, and seemed like nothing so much as a tiny, adorable goth yakuza. He lay with his head propped on one girl's lap, his legs across the lap of another, while the first fed him chocolates with stars in her eyes. Across from him, Morinozuka was also decked in black, his sleeves cut off at the shoulders to leave his arms bare and a spiked collar around his neck. The normally stone-faced tower of a boy should have been forbidding in this atmosphere, but somehow the darkness agreed with his aura, and in his element, he looked rather mysterious and thoughtful without any help from his cousin.

The truly terrifying one, perhaps a bit too much in his element, was seated just outside a different pool of light, ringed by anxious looking girls that occasionally tittered nervously. Twin glints of candlelight reflecting off of glass lenses floated in a particularly thick pool of shadows just outside the light – uncomfortably similar in appearance to demonically glinting feline eyes. The ominous click, click, click of the Pineapple laptop – which inexplicably and hair-raisingly did not seem to give off any light to illuminate his features as he worked – marked this as Ohtori-kun's station. Here was the Shadow King, holding court in his true form – his designators went on laughing nervously and inconspicuously inching closer to the candle light, (though not one of them actually stood up and left, Umehito noted) unnerved by the real thing.

Yet another area was packed with ladies admiring the Hitachiin twins, both dressed identically long-sleeve mesh shirts and black jeans with studded belts, their hair spiked up and tipped with points of black. The only distinguishing feature between them was a leather collar that circled one twin's neck. It was affixed to a leash that the other twin held in a firm, commanding grip. As Umehito watched, the collared twin murmured some sullen remark, and like lightening, his brother jerked the leash forward and up. Holding his twin possessively in place, he leaned over him with a wolfish smirk, brought his face in close and whispered something only those nearby could hear. Whatever it was, his twin blushed and looked down, lips parted in a longing gasp. A squeal erupted from the surrounding spectators, and one freshman girl actually swooned against her friend's shoulder while a third girl fanned her absently, eyes still glued to the spectacle.

Umehito was awed, not for the first time, by the depth of dedication Suoh-kun and his minions displayed in their art. They were truly impressive individuals, each in their own way. It might once have been something of a dream of his to live up to that example, but it didn't hurt as much as it used to, to admit that that was probably impossible. They were just too amazing. As he glanced down with a bittersweet little smile, he was greeted with another surprise. His cloak was indeed gone, and the comforting concealment of his black wig had been stolen from him as well. Not only that, his blue uniform jacket had been replaced with a black blazer, his school tie was missing, and the top button of his shirt had been undone. He didn't know whether to be unnerved or impressed. Perhaps they really are too amazing…

Quiet whispers reached his ears, and he cast his eyes around to see several of the girls glancing and gesturing towards him. Embarrassed he hunched his shoulders, trying to make himself inconspicuous, but after a moment he realized that they were not shrinking from him as they usually did. In fact, a few of their gazes were openly appraising, curious rather than anxious… Umehito realized with a start that they probably didn't know who they were looking at. None of his school mates besides the Host Club had ever seen him without his robes.

It dawned on him then with striking clarity - the Host Club had created a fantasy world tailor-made to his tastes, and had donned costumes so that he could shed his…

Blinking his way through this revelation, he still didn't know what to make of it, but his shoulders relaxed and he was able to stand a bit straighter, the shade of anonymity concealing his ingrown insecurities more effectively than any cloak ever could, until only one lingered. But it was a big one. His eyes swept the rich dimness to no avail. It didn't matter really matter how he seemed to other girls if one in particular wasn't there to weigh in…

Where was Haruhi?

* * *

Haruhi tugged at her clothes nervously and peeked once more around the drape of gauzy black cloth that hid her from view. This had seemed like an excellent idea at the time, but now that the moment had come… The clothes were beautiful, but surely she must look ridiculous in them. What would her designators think? Would the Host Club suffer for it? And… what would he think?

Chewing on her lip, she glanced out again, and her breath caught in her chest.

Nekozawa-senpai stood alone in the labyrinth of silk and shadows that the Third Music Room had become, looking nervous and bemused, but oddly at ease, his head held high. His blue eyes and golden hair shimmered in the candle light. At the sight of his face, bare of concealment, chin tilted in something like determination, her heart started to pound. In that frozen moment, the creature of sensation was curiously silent, and the awkward moth boy was nowhere to be seen. It was just Haruhi Fujioka gazing longingly at Umehito Nekozawa.

Pink bloomed on her cheeks. It amazed her that such a person found her interesting. Doubt nagged at her in a sudden, fierce assult. What if she was reading his intentions wrong? After all, she had a track record; memories of Arai-kun's mistaken confession still made her cringe.

Yet there was only one way to learn the truth and dispel her doubts.

Nekozawa was standing straight, eyes forward and searching, even though he was surrounded by people that made him uncomfortable. He was being so brave. Somehow it made her want to be brave too. It made her back straighten and her shoulders square and her chest tighten achingly. He was giving her courage just by being there. Haruhi marveled at the emotion. The hours of inconvenience and frustration seemed to melt and dissolve away in the glowing warmth that pervaded her chest. Right now they seemed such a small price to pay. The creature of sensation nuzzled her knowingly, sending sparks skittering through her system to dance over the growing warmth that began a slow burn beneath her skin as she took a deep breath and made her resolve. For him, then...

"Love, huh?" she murmured to herself. Her cheeks pinked once more as she smiled inwardly. It was powerful stuff.

* * *

No traps had been sprung so far. That didn't set Umehito at ease in the slightest. If anything, the hosts seemed to be going to exceptional lengths to avoid noticing his presence as he lurked aimlessly (and admittedly rather less dramatically than he was used to, given his lack of paraphernalia) through the maze of candlelight and lace. It only proved they were up to something. And Haruhi was nowhere to be seen. This was not shaping up into a promising situation. In fact, that little cold spot was gainging ground beneath his breast bone, and he grew progressively more certain that any minute now...

A spotlight burst brilliantly to life, suddenly enough make Umehito cringe as he raised his arms instinctively to cover his face.

But to his genuine astonishment, it was not aimed at him for once.

His arms lowered to his sides as his eyes adjusted to discover Suoh-kun, standing centered in the white-hot pool of light, posed with one foot up on a coffee table so that he could lean on his bent knee with slightly reckless abandon.

He was dressed like someone's fantasy of a gothic rockstar. A black jacket with a ruff of black feathers to cradle his golden head opened to reveal that he wore no shirt underneath, only a studded black collar and a chain with a gothic cross hanging from it. His black jeans, complete with a matching studded belt, were ripped haphazardly, and disappeared into knee-high leather boots that buckled all down the front and laced up the back. Black tipped fingers of one hand came up to cradle his chin and trace beneath black painted lips. His violet eyes flashed more vibrantly than ever thanks to the ring of dark eyeliner accenting them. In his other hand, he extended a white rose with dye blackening the tips of the petals.

He was every inch the radiant Host King, even while decked in the trappings of darkness. Umehito found himself tempted to applaud with stars in his eyes.

"Welcome, princesses," he intoned solemnly, but with a dangerous smirk that made several girls squeal out loud, "to the Host Club's Dark Night of the Soul. Shadows conceal many secrets. Now is the time for baring your hearts, and your most illicit desires."

Though he doubted Suoh could see past the blinding molten glare of the spotlight, the younger boy met Umehito's eyes as he said this. After a tense moment, something softened in Suoh's eyes and he seemed to turn back to the crowd at large, though his posture never changed.

"Take care and beware, my precious flowers. Your pure and radiant hearts shine like beacons in our labyrinth of night. Have a care, lest you tempt these beings of the shadow to swallow you up."

With a flourish, he tossed the rose into the crowd, and the spotlight went dark.

The girls giggled and cried out in of mock fear, overjoyed with the game, and many of them swarmed forward to crowd around Suoh, apparently eager to be gobbled up as promised. Remarkable. Did girls like this sort of thing? Perhaps that was why he had been invited. Perhaps the hosts were trying to be friendly. Perhaps this would usher in a new era of inter-club cooperation, and herald the birth of a whole new marketing campaign for the Black Magic Club. After all, love jinxes and hexes were Kanazuki's specialty. Haninozuka should have invited her, she would have been elated to try out some of her new curses in such a charming atmosphere… It made sense. They probably felt sorry for him. They were probably trying to cheer him up…

He didn't feel cheered. In spite of his delight in the enchanting atmosphere, the novelty of anonymity and the bittersweet thrill of an overture from these creatures of light that he'd baited for so long, all he felt was the vast vein of loneliness tracing a fissure through the core of his heart and welling with frothing rush of cold, bitter disappointment.

Because she wasn't there. It made everything hollow. Umehito shook his head sadly. He suddenly didn't care about invitations or traps or selling cursed icons. He didn't want to be there anymore. He turned towards the door.

And then, as if on cue, the curtains on the far side of the room shifted. Umehito glanced instinctively towards the movement, and just like that, sudden as lightening splitting a storm, all his dark distress disappeared as he found himself witnessing a dream with his waking eyes.

"Haruhi…" he whispered, eyes wide, lips parting as the air rushed from his lungs as though from a physical blow to the chest.

She was dazzling. So much so that for a moment Umehito was afraid. She offered a sincere smile to a group of openly gaping girls in the nearest pool of candlelight, then turned to the nearby sideboard to check the refreshment trays.

His feet were carrying him towards her before he even realized he was in motion, a moth to its flame, brushing aside curtains as he went. As the sight of her became clearer with each lifting veil, and he better understood what he was seeing, he spared a moment's further annoyance at his family's prying staff, before it was swept away by gratitude. Then that too vanished behind him like a shed cloak, and all there was, was Umehito Nekozawa staring at Haruhi Fujioka.

Haruhi as he'd never seen her before.

Haruhi dressed like a woman.

Not just that… Haruhi dressed like his sister's doll. Like his drawing. Like his fantasy… he shivered and stumbled to a halt half a meter from her, speechless.

The costume was accurately replicated down to the slightest detail. But there was no comparing a drawing or a doll to the real thing. As expected, the vermillion and black lace suited her exquisitely. The bodice and full skirt accentuated her slender figure, always before hidden under the (extremely, utterly, criminally) wrong sort of clothes. The nylons and gauntlets cut with crisscrossing ribbons patterned the newly exposed alabaster of her arms and legs. Her skin seemed to glow in the ambient candlelight, transforming that bareness into mouthwatering temptation, particularly the square of white flesh above the tease of the neckline, the shadowed indentation of her collarbone competing for his fascination with the choker that adorned and drew attention to the slender line of her neck…

His face felt hot as he pressed the back of his hand against his lips and tried to collect himself. His eyes ached from want of blinking and his heart felt like it would batter its way right out of his chest. How could anything real be so beautiful…

A flurry of movement just past her arresting form somehow managed to snag his attention. His eyes flicked up just in time to see Kuretake-san give him a thumbs-up and an exaggerated wink before she turned and hustled a giggling, starry-eyed Kirimi-chan away through the curtains and out of sight. The distraction could not have come at a better moment, for it reminded Umehito that he needed to breathe.

At the gust of his gasp, Haruhi paused in her activity. She stood there, stock still, for an endless moment before her head turned slowly towards him. The black satin of the ribbon tied in her hair hung down the side of her face, so that she seemed to be peeking almost coyly around edge of it as she met his eyes over her shoulder. His heart missed a beat.

Then, slowly, a small, shy smile spread over her face. Umehito swallowed hard as his head swam with the sight it, but he didn't dare even toy with the idea of fainting. Now that he'd stepped this far into the flames, he would not miss a single moment of its splendor, even if it killed him. That nagging, sinister voice at the back of his head reminded him coldly that a moth rarely survived its passion for the flame, but he smothered it with quiet determination. Eyes filled with her, he couldn't bring himself to care if she burnt him up, as long as he could stand beside her while she did it.

But her eyes were deep and clear as she abandoned the sideboard and turned towards him. They held no games or teasing as they swept over him. Serene and straightforward – unreadable in his current state, but even he could see that as she looked at him, it was with an open honesty that spoke of more than mere polite acquaintance. It held a measure of faith and trust. And a promise acceptance that obliterated a crumbling wall somewhere inside him, one so old he'd forgotten it was even there. Heat rushed over that cold spot just beneath his heart. He took another involuntary step towards her, his eyes fluttering with surprise as he caught his forward motion and just barely held himself in check.

"_Irashaimase_, Neko… erm, Umehito." Haruhi greeted, tilting her head slightly so that the ribbon in her hair brushed against her cheek.

"Th-thank you for the invitation, H-Haruhi."

His courage in speaking her name was rewarded as her calm rippled, and she glanced down as her cheeks pinked prettily. A flock of moths began fluttering in Umehito's stomach, yet somehow it galvanized him to see he wasn't the only one who was flustered. He followed her gaze down her body, to where her small hands smoothed over the satin of the corset and the lace of the skirt, which emphasized her slim waist and the gentle flare of her hips. His mouth went dry.

"Do… do you like it?" Haruhi asked with uncharacteristic uncertainty as she took note of his appraisal. A flash of consternation furrowed her brow, and she looked momentarily perplexed, as though confused by her own question, but then seemed to dismiss her own bewilderment, and opened her arms slightly to indicate her appearance.

He nodded dumbly, mind in traction. _You're a paragon… the moon in the sky… you're unparalleled…_ Panic lanced through him as her eyes shifted away from his, made even more uncertain by his stunned silence. _Say something, you idiot!_

"You're beautiful – er, it! It's beautiful! I mean, it's beautiful on you… th-that is… um…" Umehito flinched, lowering his head and missing his wig and cloak. When the floor refused to obligingly open up and swallow him into the pits of hell, he clenched his jaw and tried to stop over thinking. Steeling himself, he looked up and once more tumbled headfirst into her eyes.

"Gentle radiance… candlelight, starlight, firefly… charming as the moon…"

The words flowed from his mouth with a quiet admiration and the sure conviction of statements of fact, long before he could do anything to stop them. Color flooded over the last hint of paleness in his cheeks and the compulsion to fist his fingers in his hair and start pulling was nearly overwhelming. Of course the bad poetry from his journal would mean nothing to her – she would not realize that he was saying that she was everything he had ever dreamed or imagined, and so much more…

But as he watched from behind his lashes, her eyes widened, then softened, and her cheeks lit with a blushing glow of warmth that stole the breath from his lungs once again.

Could it be she understood? His chest constricted with longing.

"H-Haruhi, I…"

His words were cut off by a quietly pitiful whimpering from beyond a nearby curtain. Umehito and Haruhi blinked and turned in unison to see two of Haruhi's regular designators lurking behind it, identical waterfalls of tears pouring down their faces into a puddle that threatened to ruin the silk they were clinging to. Beside them, Renge stood with her hands on her hips, grinning with smug satisfaction.

"Ne, ne, Renge-chan," one girl whined miserably, "Could it be that Haruhi really is a girl?"

Renge scoffed, buffed the nails of one hand against her dress, and examined them with a casual disdain.

"Of course Haruhi's a girl," she replied, oozing contempt and disappointment. "It's her 'type' – the 'gender bender'. Don't tell me you didn't know! Everyone else did. Where is your pride as an otaku? I feel like I haven't taught you anything."

Both girls rocked back as though they'd been smacked across the face with a brick. After a frozen instant, their backs straightened as they frantically waved their hands and shook their heads.

"No, I… I knew it all along!" the second girl claimed, sniffing and scrubbing at her eyes.

"Well, s-so did I! I was just making sure it was okay to say so!" insisted the first. She glanced forlornly over her shoulder at the bemused Haruhi, offered her a shaky smile, then waved. "S-see you next time, Haruhi! I'll designate you again for sure!"

Renge smirked conspiratorially at Haruhi, then swept away into the shadows, leading her shell shocked disciples away into a brave new world as she expounded upon the refined sense of moe embodied by the cross-dresser.

Umehito cocked his head admiringly at Renge's own personal brand of black magic. Then he could no longer spare brain cells to wonder at her craftiness, and turned unerringly back to the current center of his universe. Haruhi was still staring after the girls, looking slightly worried and slightly amused, and more than a little annoyed.

"They'll be fine," she muttered under her breath with a sigh.

Her lips turned up in an introspective little smile, and her eyes connected to his once more with a searing electrical jolt. How was it that she make his heart leap just by looking at him? The electricity of her gaze tingled along his skin as her pupils dilated with an echo of his own rapt longing. She opened her mouth to speak, and he felt himself leaning forward, hanging on the slope of her lips…

…then nearly toppled over sideways as Suoh popped up between them, all wagging tail and wiggling ears, like a sparkly-eyed goth-rock puppy.

"Haruhi! Wasn't my speech of darkness inspiring?"

"Tamaki-senpai!" Haruhi huffed, pursing her lips and shoving at his shoulders as he nuzzled her cheek. "I'm trying to have a conversation with…"

A sonic crack and a demonic flash of red light sliced the air as Suoh abandoned Haruhi mid-sentence and spun around. Umehito found his shoulders clamped tightly in his tearfully impassioned grasp. (All the while, it didn't escape his notice that the younger boy was wearing a lucky rabbit's foot on his belt, a four leaf clover on his lapel and a rather pungent clove of garlic around his neck.)

"You have my blessing, son!" Suoh informed him gravely, pulling back to look Umehito in the eye. "But no blood sacrifices or contracts with the lord of darkness! And remember, if you misbehave, I have a set of devious doppelgangers at the end of my leash…"

He left the sentence to trail of ominously, and looked pointedly over Umehito's shoulder, where the Hitachiin twins were watching him with unnervingly unblinking identically intent expressions that reminded him of cats watching a bird fluttering in a cage. Bewildered, but genuinely worried, Umehito gave an obedient nod. He was rewarded with Suoh's benevolent withdrawal.

"Be a good girl, Haruhi, and write to your father," he said, waving a black lace handkerchief at her as he drifted away into the darkness.

Haruhi and Umehito stood, disconcerted, in the awkward silence he left in his wake, both thrown off kilter and half afraid to speak for fear of being interrupted again – there was only so much courage to go around.

Umehito cringed inwardly as the silence lengthened, chafing his thumb over his index finger nervously. He wanted to fill that silence with witty conversation to charm her, or even bewilder and annoy her into scolding him, like Suoh did. He wanted to make her tilt her head so that her ribbon brushed her silky cheek, make her smile that shy smile again...

But he was no host. He was a boy in a black cloak and wig, but without his black cloak and wig, in a room full of strange creatures of light hiding themselves in darkness, trying to woo a celestial being as far beyond his reach as the moon… he had possibly fallen down a rabbit hole at some point, but he was fresh out of impossible things.

In the background, the music changed. Umehito recognized the song, it was from one of his favorite European goth rock bands, and the lyrics were eerily appropriate to the moment.

_Oh girl, we are the same,_  
_We are young and lost and so afraid…_  
_There's no cure for the pain…_  
_No shelter from the rain…_  
_All our prayers seem to fade…_

Suddenly, Haruhi took a determined step forward, hands curling in little fists against her corset. Her face was lit with an almost defiant determination, and Umehito felt his cheeks heat. If her usual expression was serene and calming, this look of determination mixed with trepidation was absolutely adorable! He felt a sudden kinship for the rest of the Host Club, who seemed unable to refrain from cuddling her at regular intervals. He considered what it might be like to wrap small form in an embrace and cradle her warmth against his chest, his face nestled against her fine soft hair. He wondered what her hair would smell like... The wave of longing his imagination generated at that idea was so intense that he had to drag his attention kicking and screaming back to the reality in front of him as she at last found her voice.

"I want to thank you… Umehito…"

He died a small, ecstatic death at the way her lips wrapped around his name. Her voice was earnest, almost pleading, as though imploring him to understand her feelings, even if she couldn't express them adequately. As she had done for him. He leaned forward, aching to try, for both their sakes. He wanted to understand anything about her that she was willing to share with him. Her head bowed slightly, so she was looking him in the chest as she continued pensively.

"It's because of what you did for me that I am free to wear this dress and tell my friends who I am… that I'm free to choose who I want to be, and where I want to be… I knew that I wanted it, but I hadn't realized what a burden had been weighing on my shoulders until you lifted it for me."

She lifted her flushed face to his once more, and though there was again an uncharacteristic uncertainty in the set of her jaw, her eyes were pools of deep serenity and safety.

"…so I wanted to tell you…" she went on with a small, warm smile, undaunted in spite of what was probably some idiotic look of slack-jawed amazement painted all over his face; she sparkled as she gazed up at him, saying it with her face, her hands, her form, her lips, and her entire presence:

"Thank you."

In the darkness, the music crooned on…

_Oh girl, we are the same_  
_We are strong and blessed and so brave…_  
_With souls to be saved…_  
_And faith regained…_  
_All our tears wiped away…_

Umehito's eyes fluttered closed for a long moment as the burn of her words settled in his chest and radiated outward in a tingling haze of warmth, relief and elation. She drove back the last clinging webs of doubt, and engulfed in the rush and sensation of her nearness, he took his final plunge of his descent into the heart of the flame.

"I… I am happy I could find a way to help you," he blurted, blushing for all he was worth. "Something I could give you. Because we're so different, but I believe that you were right. That… we're alike. And I wanted to make you happy because you've made me very happy. Just by being who you are." Squeezing his eyes shut, he confessed in a bursting dam of emotion. "Man, or woman, whoever you are, or whoever you want to be… you are you… you comfort me and fascinate me… and I wanted to please you and… and I… I really…"

Here his jaw clenched up, frustration and something frantic striking through the heart of him like spears of burning ice. Trembling slightly at the unexpected force of what he felt for her, he couldn't make himself finish the sentence. Words seemed too shallow for this feeling. How could he ever communicate this emotion to her…?

His heart lurched out of rhythm as he felt a gentle caress along his jaw. Her hand was warm where it brushed his cheek, and his eyes popped open wide to stare at her with apprehensive wonder.

"I'm really glad you decided to take off your cloak, even if its just for today," she confided almost casually, her conversational tone inexplicably easing his wildly lurching heart. She brushed at a stray strand of his blond hair. "I like being able to see your face."

Her hand traveled down his face, along the line of his neck to trail a line of fire over his shoulder and down to rest boldly on his chest, right over his hammering heart. He was amazed to see that her breathing was ever so slightly labored, as though she'd been running, and he realized, astonished and entranced, that her heart must be beating at least as fast as his.

"You interest me as well," she confessed, so straightforward and easily honest that it shamed him even as his lips tugged back in a hapless ghost of a smile. "If you don't mind… I would really like to know you better. I… really like you, Umehito."

Time seemed to crack and shatter and slow to a crawl for an eternal instant as his arms took on a life of their own and came up to grip her shoulders. Her eyes widened in surprise as he pulled her towards him with enough force to make her collide with his chest. He could sympathize. He had surprised himself, and his eyes were as wide as hers as their gazes met over the endless expanse of inches that separated them. He could feel the lace and satin under his fingers, warm as the skin just underneath... his breath caught in his throat.

They stared at each other, owl-eyed and speechless, for a long moment. And then their expressions turned knowing as a wordless understanding bridged the swirling chaos between them. Neither of them was getting out of this unscathed. The moth in him had already burnt to a cinder and all that was left was a man looking down at the girl he was falling ever deeper in love with. The next move was inevitable, a fixed point in time, destined.

As his head bent close to hers, it seemed he saw something wild wake up in her eyes, stretch, purr and begin to knead with delight… He stopped a millimeter from her mouth, impulsively drawing a teasing line up the bridge of her nose with the tip of his, some rebellious corner of him, driven mad by her closeness, insolently prolonging and savoring the last instant of suspense. It made her shiver in the most enticing way and a delicate zephyr of her warm breath stole between her parted lips at his touch. It put him beyond patience. He pressed her waiting lips with his own.

A sudden chorus of cheers, squeals of delight, dreamy sighs and shouts of encouragement erupted around the room, as the captive audience they had acquired at some point could no longer hold back their excitement. But the pair were deaf to it as Haruhi fisted her fingers in the fabric of Umehito's jacket and pressed back. He felt a momentary graze wet warmth along his lower lip and it sizzled through every single cell of his body. Her kiss was as soft and firm as he remembered, and full of want and welcome and formless possibilities that they alone could discover together.

The music swelled and swirled in the air around them, and over the sounds of girlish excitement could just be detected the dulcet melody of the song…

_In joy and sorrow, my home's in your arms,_  
_In word so hollow it's breaking my heart…_  
_In joy and sorrow, my home's in your arms,_  
_In words so hollow it's breaking my heart._

The kiss was lingering, but all too short as they slowly returned to the waking world. Yet as they pulled slowly apart, the space that grew between their tingling lips seemed to sing with an electrical promise – they were separated for now, but there was no escape – they would soon meet again.

Time, which had seemed to falter to stillness in rapt fascination at their embrace, began to stumble forward once more, and the pair became aware of their raucous audience. Umehito thought there just might be steam coming out of his ears as all the blood in his body rushed straight to his face - a physiological miracle that only caused more giggles and romantic sighs to waft up out of the voracious crowd.

Haruhi was noticeably red as well, but her shy smile turned wry as she glanced around at the salivating fangirls drugged on an extreme overdose of hormones and moe, and the bittersweet expressions of grudging approval on the faces of her clubmates, then took Umehito's hand and pulled him away towards an unoccupied sofa set in one of the lace-encircled alcoves. Deciding on the spur of the moment to be philosophical about his mortification, he went willingly, grinning a bashful, idiotic grin at the back of her head all the while.

* * *

The spectators watched, some deftly, others shamelessly, as the pair sat down side by side, keeping a decorous distance that only inflamed the observers' imaginations; in spite of their sudden unaccountable shyness, there was a silent electricity sparking in the air between the two. They sat and savored their tea and made halting, earnest conversation, taking the first tricky steps on the journey towards learning each others hearts.

"Well, Father?" Kyoya murmured as he stepped up beside the sofa where Tamaki knelt, watching the new-minted couple over the backrest with his chin propped on his hand. "Are you satisfied?"

"Of course, Mother," Tamaki replied, voice unusually subdued, almost wistful. His eyelashes shadowed his lavender gaze and there was a sad, dreamy, sincere smile on his face. "The Host Club exists to bring joy to women. Look at her." He nodded in Haruhi's direction. "She's happy."

Kyoya followed his gaze assessingly for a few moments, then glanced back down at his friend with a small, knowing smirk. In spite of everything, Tamaki was as kind as he was (occasionally) wise in his own off-beat way. Not that he was ever going to let Tamaki know it - he doubted he could endure the backwash of vanity off of Tamaki's overblown opinion of himself without strangling him, and he had every intention of using him shamelessly to his fullest advantage... But he acknowledged it nonetheless.

In one corner of the room Hikaru and Kaoru had gone back to playing erotic punishment games, while near the cupboard, Hunny-senpai cuddled Usa-chan (which currently wore a black spiked collar around its neck) while Mori-senpai loomed over him with benign menace, holding with a plate of chocolate confections. Across the room, Renge was perched upon her dais, diagramming drag queen fashion for a huddled mass of otaku refugees from Haruhi's camp. Kyoya thought he caught a glimpse of a chimpanzee swinging from the rafters, narrowly avoiding the tranquilizer dart from a blowgun wielded by one of his personal police force, whom he'd called in to double as decorators. He glanced down at his friend again, the back towards the object of his stalwart observation.

Haruhi, the androgynous commoner dressed like a dark princess, next to Nekozawa-senpai, the prince of darkness, looking innocent as an angel as he blushed and stammered, causing Haruhi to laugh warmly as she offered him a plate of scones, and eliciting a shy smile and a look of pure adoration from the boy next to her in return. Kyoya deftly pushed his glasses up his nose with the tip of his index finger, bemused.

They were all strange animals in their own way. Yet somehow those two odd, unlikely creatures, were the strangest of all. Anyone who knew them would say they made the most improbable pair imaginable.

And yet everyone who chanced to glance over at them in enthusiastic excitement or bittersweet acceptance that day could only agree: stripped of all their masks, finally facing each other properly, striving to understand with their minds what their hearts and bodies already knew, they seemed to see each other clearly at last. Different as they were, and strange as it seemed, it was plain to one and all that they fit together like it was the most natural thing in the world.

* * *

_**The End...?**_  
_**...oh, no. This is only the beginning.**_

* * *

**Note**: But no, really, this is the end! Thank you once more to everyone who has read this story all the way through! I had so much fun writing it - even though I accidentally took that tiny five year break between chapters... In truth, I've had so much fun that I'm thinking of writing a sequel; after all there is plenty left of adventures for these two strange creatures to uncover! Review and let me know what you think! I've already got a few ideas, but suggestions are always welcome!  
Thanks again to all my readers, and especially my reviewers. Nursing school is a little piece of hell on earth, so I may be a while, but if you liked this, please keep an eye out for more fics, for I assure you, you have not seen the last of me! (dat dat daaaah...)

* * *

**Soundtrack for this fanfic**:  
Killing Loneliness - by HIM  
Funeral of Hearts - by HIM  
Under the Rose - by HIM  
Pretending - by HIM  
Beautiful - by HIM  
In Joy and Sorrow - by HIM


End file.
